Monday, February 28, 2011

QUOTATION: Transubstantion

Since Christ Himself has said, 'This is My Body' who shall dare to doubt that It is His Body?

--St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Sunday, February 27, 2011

QUOTATION: Giving up our will to God

To lose ourselves in God is simply to give up our own will to Him. When a soul can truly say, 'Lord, I have no other will than Yours,' it is truly lost in God, and united to Him.

--St. Francis de Sales

Saturday, February 26, 2011

QUOTATION: Humility and Salvation

Humility is necessary not only for the acquisition of virtues, but even for salvation. For the gate of Heaven, as Christ Himself testifies, is so narrow that it admits only little ones.

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Friday, February 25, 2011

QUOTATION: Purity

Never believe you have attained such purity as you should, whilst your will is not freely and gladly submissive to the holy will of God, as to all, and in all, even in things the most repugnant.

--St. Francis de Sales

Thursday, February 24, 2011

QUOTATION: God's Cause

Again and again, God’s cause seems to be in its death throes. Yet over and over again, it proves to be the thing that truly endures and saves.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

QUOTATION: The Spirit of Faith

It is not the actual physical exertion that counts toward a man's progress, nor the nature of the task, but the spirit of faith with which it is undertaken.

--St. Francis Xavier

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

QUOTATION: Joy

Spiritual joy arises from purity of the heart and perseverance in prayer.

--St. Francis of Assisi

Monday, February 21, 2011

QUOTATION: Holiness and Suffering

All the science of the Saints is included in these two things: To do, and to suffer. And whoever had done these two things best, has made himself most saintly. 

--St. Francis de Sales

Sunday, February 20, 2011

QUOTATION: Perfection

As it is most certain that the teaching of Christ cannot deceive, if we would walk securely, we ought to attach ourselves to it with greatest confidence and to profess openly that we live according to it, and not to the maxims of the world, which are all deceitful. This is the fundamental maxim of all Christian perfection.

--St. Vincent de Paul

Saturday, February 19, 2011

QUOTATION: Adversity

Do not reason about afflictions and contradictions, but receive them with patience and sweetness, feeling that it is enough to know that they come from the hand of God.

--St. Francis de Sales

Friday, February 18, 2011

QUOTATION: Blessed are those who mourn

The mourning of which the Lord speaks is nonconformity with evil; it is a way of resisting models of behaviour that the individual is pressured to accept because “everyone does it.” The world cannot tolerate this kind of resistance; it demands conformity. It considers this mourning to be an accusation directed against the numbing of consciences. And so it is. That is why those who mourn suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

QUOTATION: Obedience

Obedience is the summary of perfection and of the whole spiritual life, and the securest, shortest, least laborious and least dangerous way of becoming enriched with all virtues, and arriving at the goal of our desires - eternal life.

--Bl. Francisco Alvarez

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

QUOTATION: Simplicity

Simplicity is nothing but an act of charity pure and simple, which has but one sole end - that of gaining the love of God. Our soul is then truly simple, when we have no aim at all but this, in all we do.

--St. Francis de Sales

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

QUOTATION: Communion

Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven.

--Pope St. Pius X

Monday, February 14, 2011

QUOTATION: Obedience

Many religious and others have been saints without meditation, but without obedience no one.

--St. Francis de Sales

Sunday, February 13, 2011

QUOTATION: Penance

I must say that we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word ‘penance,’ which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life, to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed. The pain of penance, that is to say of purification and of transformation, this pain is grace, because it is renewal, and it is the work of Divine Mercy.


-- Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Salvation and Jesus Christ

The prevailing view today is that everyone should live by their religion—or perhaps by the atheism—in which he happens to find himself already. This, it is said, is the path of salvation for him. Such a view presupposes a strange picture of God and a strange idea of man and of the right way for man to live. Let us try to clarify this by asking a few practical questions. Does someone achieve blessedness and justification in God’s eyes because he has conscientiously fulfilled the duties of blood vengeance? Because he has vigourously fought for and in “holy war”? Or because he has performed certain animal sacrifices? Or because he has practiced ritual ablutions and other observances? Because he has declared his opinions and wishes to be norms of conscience and so made himself the criterion? No, God demands the opposite: that we become inwardly attentive to his quiet exhortation, which is present in us and which tears us away from what is merely habitual and puts us on the road to truth. To “hunger and thirst for righteousness”—that is the path that lies open to everyone; that is the way that finds its destination in Jesus Christ.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth.


Saturday, February 12, 2011

QUOTATION: Anger

When you feel the assaults of passion and anger, then it is time to be silent as Jesus was silent in the midst of His ignominies and suffering.

--St. Paul of the Cross

Friday, February 11, 2011

QUOTATION: Truth

Christ said, 'I am the Truth'; he did not say 'I am the custom.'


--St. Toribio de Mongrovejo

Thursday, February 10, 2011

QUOTATION: Our Existence is Special

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.


-- Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Mortification

Believe me that the mortification of the senses in seeing, hearing, and speaking, is worth much more than wearing chains or haircloth. 

--St. Francis de Sales

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

QUOTATION: Correction

To be pleased at correction and reproofs shows that one loves the virtues which are contrary to those faults for which he is corrected and reproved. And, therefore, it is a great sign of advancement in perfection.

--St. Francis de Sales

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

QUOTATION: Perfection in One's Vocation

To be perfect in our vocation is nothing else than to fulfil the duties which our state of life obliges us to perform, and to accomplish them well, and only for the honor and love of God.

--St. Francis de Sales

Monday, February 7, 2011

QUOTATION: The Sanctification of Society

Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.

--St. Francis of Assisi

Sunday, February 6, 2011

QUOTATION: Proof of Love

The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.

--Pope St. Gregory the Great

Saturday, February 5, 2011

QUOTATION: Love of God and Salvation

He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

Friday, February 4, 2011

QUOTATION: Charity

If we are to enter the church day and night and implore God to hear our prayers, how careful should we be to hear and grant the petitions of our neighbor in need.

--St. John the Almoner

Thursday, February 3, 2011

QUOTATION: Moral Doctrine

The Church, in her life and teaching, is thus revealed as "the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tm 3:15), including the truth regarding moral action.

--Pope John Paul II

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

QUOTATION: The Blessed Sacrament

We should consider those moments spent before the Blessed Sacrament as the happiest of our lives.

--St. Jean Vianney, the Cure of Ars.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

QUOTATION: Practical Atheism

What does it avail to know that there is a God, which you not only believe by Faith, but also know by reason: what does it avail that you know Him if you think little of Him?

--St. Thomas More