QUOTATION: Obedience

If obedience doesn't give you peace, it's because you're proud.

- St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way

QUOTATION: Society and Morality

You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Mary

The Virgin is simply an echo of God, speaking and repeating only God. If you say “Mary” she says ‘GOD’.

--St. Louis De Montfort

QUOTATION: Humility

The humble realize that of themselves they are nothing, and that they stand in extreme need of help and grace of heaven; but the proud are convinced that they are full of grace and virtue. That is why God takes pleasure in showering His gifts on the former and in depriving the latter of His bounty.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary

Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being beaten and punished by a little and humble handmaid of God, and her humility humbles him more than the divine power.

--St. Louis de Montfort

QUOTATION: Orthodoxy Versus Relativism

Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. ... Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.

--Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: The Culture of Death

While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in its final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of " the strong" against the weak who have no choice but to submit.

-- Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae

QUOTATION: Mortification

Did my good Jesus have any obligation to shed His Blood for me? He died on the Cross for the salvation of our souls. And will I, His servant, refuse to put up with some inconvenience or toil in order to reciprocate?

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Feminism

There are two great enemies of feminism: masculinity and femininity.

--Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Spiritual Courage

To acquire courage it is very useful to read the lives of the saints, especially of those who, after living in sin, attained great sanctity.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Prayer

Prayer is to our soul what rain is to the soil. Fertilize the soil ever so richly, it will remain barren unless fed by frequent rains.

--St. Jean Vianney, The Cure of Ars

QUOTATION: Abortion

A woman who sets her rights, the supposed right to privacy or right over her own body, above the life of another human being is saying that a woman’s rights are superior to human rights. She has put herself above the human race, she has made herself the executor over life and death. Is that a woman’s right?

--Janet Smith

QUOTATION: Persecution

Persecution shows who is a hireling, and who a true pastor.

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux

QUOTATION: Temptation

Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife.

--Pope St. Leo the Great

QUOTATION: The Devil

Whatever the less discerning theologians may say, the devil, as far as Christian belief is concerned, is a puzzling but real, personal and not merely symbolical presence.

--Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Praise

I advise you not to look for praise, even when you deserve it. It is better to pass unnoticed, and to let the most beautiful and noble aspects of our actions, of our lives, remain hidden. What a great thing it is to become little! Deo omnis gloria!

- St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way

QUOTATION: The Liberty of Liberals

From all this may be understood the nature and character of that liberty which the followers of liberalism so eagerly advocate and proclaim. On the one hand, they demand for themselves and for the State a license which opens the way to every perversity of opinion; and on the other, they hamper the Church in divers ways, restricting her liberty within narrowest limits, although from her teaching not only is there nothing to be feared, but in every respect very much to be gained.

--Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, 1888

QUOTATION: Eucharistic Devotion

Neither theological knowledge nor social action alone is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are proceeded by a personal encounter with Him. Theological insights are gained not only from between two covers of a book, but from two bent knees before an altar. The Holy Hour becomes like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the world,

-- Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Orthodoxy

Put into practice the teachings of our holy faith, it is not enough to convince ourselves that they are true; we must love them. Love united to faith makes us practice our religion.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Blessed Sacrament

The Sacrament of the Body of the Lord puts the demons to flight, defends us against the incentives to vice and to concupiscence, cleanses the soul from sin, quiets the anger of God, enlightens the understanding to know God, inflames the will and the affections with the love of God, fills the memory with spiritual sweetness, confirms the entire man in good, frees us from eternal death, multiplies the merits of a good life, leads us to our everlasting home, and re-animates the body to eternal life.

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: The Blessed Sacrament

Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament has His hands full of graces, and He is ready to bestow them on anyone who asks for them.

-- St. Peter of Alcantara

QUOTATION: Efficient Use of Time

The best way to economize time is to 'lose' half an hour each day attending Holy Mass.

--Blessed Frederic Ozanam

QUOTATION: Saint Joseph

We cannot help but marvel at the faith of Saint Joseph. Tormenting doubts harass his soul and he is on the point of leaving Mary. But an angel appears to him and all his doubts and fears vanish. On the angel's word He accepts the mystery of the Incarnation. In the ensuing years his faith was to be frequently put to the test. At Bethlehem he had to content himself with a stable for a home where the Incarnate Word might be born. Soon after, he was forced to flee in order to save the Infant God, and when later he returned to the tiny village of Nazareth it was to live there unknown and in dire poverty. All these trials only tempered his faith. Although he sees only the Child's wretchedness and poverty, his faith pierces the shroud and uncovers the hidden God within this weak baby frame. Because his faith was so strong, Joseph's mind and heart bowed in perfect adoration. Imitate his faith as you kneel before the humble Christ annihilated in the Eucharist. Pierce the veil which covers this furnace of love and adore the hidden God. At the same time respect the veil of love and make the immolation of your mind and heart your most beautiful homage of faith.

-- St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Tyranny

The government of tyrants cannot last long because it is hateful to the multitude, and what is against the wishes of the multitude cannot long be preserved.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, The Governance of Rules, 1, 10

QUOTATION: The Illusion of Moral Self-Sufficiency

The creatures’ illusion of self-sufficiency must, for the creature’s sake, be shattered; and by trouble or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of the eternal flames, God shatters it ‘unmindful of His glory’s diminution’. Those who would like the God of the Scripture to be more purely ethical, do not know what they ask. If God were a Kantian who would not have us till we came to Him from the purest and best motives, who could be saved? And this illusion of self-sufficiency may be at its strongest in some very honest, kindly and temperate people, and on such people, therefore, misfortune must fall.

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

QUOTATION: Prayer and Self-Mastery

When one does not love prayer, it is morally impossible for him to resist his passions.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Communion

If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.

--St. Maximilian Kolbe

QUOTATION: Mysteries

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.

--G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Love and Suffering

When we know that the way of love–this exodus, this going out of oneself–is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others, becomes more human. Anyone who has consistently avoided suffering does not understand other people; he becomes hard and selfish.

--Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald, 2002

QUOTATION: Being Christian

You're not a Christian unless you're a thorn in somebody's side.

--Mother Angelica

QUOTATION: Actions speak louder than words

If His Majesty revealed His love to us by doing and suffering such amazing things, how can you expect to please Him by words alone?

--St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle

QUOTATION: Cross-dressing

What is the purpose in the Law’s prohibition against a man wearing woman’s clothing? Is it not that the Law would have us be masculine and not be effeminate in either person or actions-- or in thought and word? Rather, it would have the man who devotes himself to the truth to be masculine both in acts of endurance and patience-- in life, conduct, word and discipline.

--St. Clement of Alexandria

QUOTATION: Sin makes you blind

Every sin produces blindness; and as sin increases, so does the blindness increase. God is our light; as much, therefore, as the soul withdraws from God, so much the more blind does she become.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Spiritual Dryness

In times of aridity arouse your spirit gently, by acts of love; then rest in the will of God. It is thus that the soul gives the strongest proof of her fidelity to God. Make a bouquet of the sufferings of Jesus, and place it on the bosom of your soul, as I have told you. You can from time to time call them to mind, and say sweetly to your Saviour: 'Oh good Jesus, how swollen, bruised, and defiled with spittle do I behold Thy countenance! Oh my Love! why do I see Thee all covered with wounds? Oh Infinite Sweetness! why are Thy bones laid bare? Ah, what sufferings! what sorrows! O my God! for what are Thou all wounded! Ah, dear sufferings! dear wounds! I wish to keep you always in my heart'."

--St. Paul of the Cross

QUOTATION: Seeking God

It is better to accustom ourselves to seek God in everything we do, than to spend a long time in prayer.

--St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Crosses

Worldly people are miserable when they have crosses, and good Christians are miserable when they have none. The Christian lives in the midst of crosses, as the fish lives in the sea.

--The Cure of Ars

QUOTATION: Grief

Grief is a portion of one's heritage taken in advance from Purgatory.

--St. Lydwine of Schiedam

QUOTATION: Judging Others

It ordinarily happens that God permits those who judge others, to fall into the same or even greater faults.

--St. Vincent Ferrer

QUOTATION: Euthanasia

If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill ‘unproductive’ fellow human beings then woe betide us all when we become old and frail! If one is allowed to kill the unproductive people then woe betide the invalids who have used up, sacrificed and lost their health and strength in the productive process. If one is allowed forcibly to remove one’s unproductive fellow human beings then woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids. If it is once accepted that people have the right to kill ‘unproductive’ fellow humans–and even if initially it only affects the poor defenseless mentally ill–then as a matter of principle murder is permitted for all unproductive people, in other words for the incurably sick, the people who have become invalids through labor and war, for us all when we become old, frail and therefore unproductive.

Then, it is only necessary for some secret edict to order that the method developed for the mentally ill should be extended to other ‘unproductive’ people, that it should be applied to those suffering from incurable lung disease, to the elderly who are frail or invalids, to the severely disabled soldiers. Then none of our lives will be safe any more. Some commission can put us on the list of the ‘unproductive,’ who in their opinion have become worthless life. And no police force will protect us and no court will investigate our murder and give the murderer the punishment he deserves.

Who will be able to trust his doctor any more?

He may report his patient as ‘unproductive’ and receive instructions to kill him. It is impossible to imagine the degree of moral depravity, of general mistrust that would then spread even through families if this dreadful doctrine is tolerated, accepted and followed.

--Bishop Clemens von Galen

QUOTATION: Pride

Shun, as death itself-- even the most trifling-- act or thought of pride

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Truth

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

--Flannery O'Connor

QUOTATION: Socialism

The thing behind Bolshevism and many other modern things is a new doubt. It is not merely a doubt about God; it is rather specially a doubt about Man. The old morality, the Christian religion, the Catholic Church, differed from all this new mentality because it really believed in the rights of men. That is, it believed that ordinary men were clothed with powers and privileges... and a kind of authority. Thus the ordinary man had a right to deal with dead matter, up to a given point; that is the right of property. Thus the ordinary man had a right to rule the other animals within reason; that is the objection to vegetarianism and many other things. The ordinary man had a right to judge about his own health, and what risks he would take with the ordinary things of his environment; that is the objection to Prohibition and many other things. The ordinary man had a right to judge of his children’s health, and generally to bring up children to the best of his ability; that is the objection to many interpretations of modern State education. Now in these primary things in which the old religion trusted a man, the new philosophy utterly distrusts a man. It insists that he must be a very rare sort of man to have any rights in these matters; and when he is the rare sort, he has the right to rule others even more than himself.

--G.K. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity

QUOTATION: Truth Always Wins

Truth always ends by victory; it is not unassailable, but invincible.

--St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Authority

Do not be scared by the word authority. Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think trustworthy. Ninety-nine per cent of the things you believe are believed on authority.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

QUOTATION: Spiritual Emptiness

During painful times, when you feel a terrible void, think how God is enlarging the capacity of your soul so that it can receive him--making it, as it were, infinite as he is infinite. Look upon each pain as a love token coming to you directly from God in order to unite you to him.

--Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity

QUOTATION: God as the Foundation of the Law

When human affairs are so ordered that there is no recognition of God, there is a belittling of man. That is why, in the final analysis, worship and law cannot be completely separated from each other. God has a right to a response from man, to man himself, and where that right of God totally disappears, the order of law among men is dissolved, because there is no cornerstone to keep the whole structure together.

-- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000

QUOTATION: Hypocrisy

It is no fault of Christianity that a hypocrite falls into sin.

--St. Jerome

QUOTATION: Loving God

He that loves God does not desire to be esteemed and loved by his fellow men; the single desire of his heart is to enjoy the favor of the Almighty God, who alone forms the object of his Love.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Indifferentism

We must mention another fruitful cause of evil by which the Church is afflicted at present, namely: Indifferentism, that vicious manner of thinking which mushrooms on all sides owing to the wiles of malicious men, and which holds that the eternal salvation of the soul can be obtained by the profession of any faith, provided a man's morals be good and decent ... Let them beware who preach that the gates of Heaven are open to every religion! Let them seriously consider the testimony of the Savior that some are against Christ because they they are not with Christ, that they scatter who do not gather with Him, and therefore without doubt they will perish in eternity unless they hold to the Catholic faith and observe it whole and inviolate.

--Pope Gregory XVI

QUOTATION: Pedophilia in the Middle Ages

Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting in his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men.

--St. Peter Damian, Letter 31:38. To Pope Leo IX, A.D. 1049.