QUOTATION: Worldly Pleasures

How sweet it has been to me to be deprived of the delights of a frivolous world! What incomparable joy have I felt after a privation once so dreaded.

-- St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Sacred Tradition

The very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, was preached by the apostles and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded, and if anyone departs from this, he neither is, nor any longer ought to be called, a Christian.

-- St. Athanasius

QUOTATION: Conservatives

He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative.

--G.K. Chesterton, “Varied Types”

QUOTATION: Sin

The rabbis and priests and ministers stopped talking about sin. The jurists picked it up and turned sin into a crime, and finally psychiatrists converted it into a complex. The result is that no one is a sinner.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: God is Close

When we face the most difficult and painful situations, when it seems that God does not hear, we must not be afraid to entrust the whole weight of our overburdened hearts to Him, we must not fear to cry out to Him in our suffering, we must be convinced that God is close, even if He seems silent.

--Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Communion

Upon receiving Holy Communion, the Adorable Blood of Jesus Christ really flows in our veins and His flesh is really blended with ours.

--St. Jean Vianney, the Cure of Ars

QUOTATION: Jesus Born in a Stable

The King of heaven deigned to be born in a stable, because He came to destroy pride, the cause of man's ruin.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Humility is the Path to Jesus

Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus' birth has to bend down. It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our "enlightened" reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God's closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions than the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Christmas Homily 2011

QUOTATION: Baby Jesus

He has become so small — you see: a Child-so that you can approach him with confidence.

--Josemaria Escriva, The Way, 94

QUOTATION: Crosses

Our Lord sends the crosses; we do not have to invent them.

--St. Padre Pio

QUOTATION: Collective Worship

The New Testament does not envisage solitary religion: regular assembly for worship is everywhere in the epistles.

--C.S. Lewis

QUOTATION: Faith

The sea is surging and the waves are high: but we have nothing to fear because we stand on a rock—the rock of faith. Let the sea surge with all the power at its command, and let the waves rise as high as mountains; the rock on which we stand will remain firm and unshaken. Do I fear death? No, because on the rock of faith I know that death is the gateway to eternal life. Do I fear exile? No, because on the rock of faith I know that I am never alone; Christ is always beside me, my friend and my brother. Do I fear slander and lies? No, because on the rock of faith I know that I am always protected by the truth—Christ who is the truth, is my protector. Do I fear poverty? No, because on the rock of faith God also provides for my needs. Do I fear ridicule? No, because however low I may sink in the esteem of those without faith, on the rock of faith all are treated with respect. Far from fearing the surge of the sea, I enjoy it, because it assures me that the rock on which I stand is immovable.

--St. John Chrysostom

QUOTATION: Judgement and Hell

It is just as difficult to make a free nation without judges and prisons as it is to make a free world without judgement and Hell.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Freedom

When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: Suffering

Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.

—St Augustine

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: Pride and Humility

We put pride into everything like salt. We like to see that our good works are known. If our virtues are seen, we are pleased; if our faults are perceived, we are sad. I remark that in a great many people; if one says anything to them, it disturbs them, it annoys them. The saints were not like that -- they were vexed if their virtues were known, and pleased that their imperfections should be seen.

--St. Jean Vianney, the Cure of Ars

QUOTATION: Faith

Convenience, ease, no demands, no sacrifice, blending in, drifting along, just-like-everybody-else, no “cost of discipleship”—that’s a poisonous recipe for faith.

Hardship, sacrifice, tough choices, harassment, ridicule, standing for Gospel values, loyalty to our faith to the point of persecution or even blood—that’s the recipe for a deep, sincere, dynamic faith.

--Cardinal Timothy Dolan

QUOTATION: Loving Mary is Loving Jesus

Let us not imagine that we obscure the glory of the Son by the great praise we lavish on the Mother; for the more she is honored, the greater is the glory of her Son. There can be no doubt that whatever we say in praise of the Mother gives equal praise to the Son.

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux

QUOTATION: Spiritual Reading

When you receive any special light in reading, or any instruction that penetrates the heart, it will be very useful to stop, and to raise the mind to God by making a good resolution, or a good act, or a fervent prayer. St. Bernard says, that it is useful then to interrupt the reading, and to offer a prayer, and to continue to pray as long as the lively impression lasts. Let us imitate the bees, that pass not from one flower to another until they have gathered all the honey that they found in the first. This we should do, although all the time prescribed for the reading should be spent in such acts; for thus the time is spent with greater spiritual profit. Sometimes it may happen that you draw more fruit from reading a single verse than from reading an entire page.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The True Spouse of Jesus Christ

QUOTATION: The Secret to Happiness

One of the best ways to get happiness and pleasure out of life is to ask ourselves, “How can I please God?" It is the pleasure-seeker who is bored, for all pleasures diminish with repetition.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Petitioning God

The best time to ask and obtain favors from God is the time of the Elevation.

--St. John Bosco

QUOTATION: Lying

Of lies are many sorts, which indeed all, universally, we ought to hate. For there is no lie that is not contrary to truth. For, as light and darkness, piety and impiety, justice and iniquity, sin and right-doing, health and weakness, life and death, so are truth and a lie contrary the one to the other. Whence by how much we love the former, by so much ought we to hate the latter.

--St. Augustine, To Consentius, Against Lying

QUOTATION: Severe Self-Judgement

There are, again, some who think that it is penitence to abstain from the heavenly sacraments. These are too cruel judges of themselves, who prescribe a penalty for themselves but refuse the remedy, who ought to be mourning over their self-imposed penalty, because it deprives them of heavenly grace.

--St. Ambrose of Milan, On Repentance, Book 2

QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary

The reason why Christ is unknown today is because His Mother is unknown

--Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: Answering and Keeping Silent

We are sensitive to words and quickly want to answer back, without taking any regard as to whether it is God’s will that we should speak. A silent soul is strong; no adversities will harm it, if it perseveres in silence. The silent soul is capable of attaining the closest union with God.

--St. Faustina Kowalska

QUOTATION: Love of 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: Obedience

Many people [in authority] oppose us, persecute us, and would like even to destroy us, but we must be patient. As long as their commands are not against our conscience, let us obey them, but when the case is otherwise, let us uphold the rights of God and of the Church, for those are superior to all earthly authority.

--St. John Bosco

QUOTATION: Asleep at the Wheel

Across the centuries, it is the drowsiness of the disciples that opens up possibilities for the power of the Evil One. Such drowsiness deadens the soul, so that it remains undisturbed by the power of the Evil One at work in the world and by all the injustice and suffering ravaging the earth. In its state of numbness, the soul prefers not to see all this; it is easily persuaded that things cannot be so bad, so as to continue in the self-satisfaction of its own comfortable existence. Yet this deadening of souls, this lack of vigilance regarding both God’s closeness and the looming forces of darkness, is what gives the Evil One power in the world.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 2

QUOTATION: Turning the Other Cheek

Why should we turn the other cheek? Because hate multiplies like a seed. If one preaches hate and violence to ten men in a row, and tells the first to strike the second, and the second to strike the third, the hatred will envelop all ten. The only way to stop this hate is for one man to turn his other cheek. Then the hatred ends. It is never passed on. Absorb violence for the sake of the Savior, who will absorb sin and die for it.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Little Sins

How dearly we shall pay for all those faults that we look upon as nothing at all, like those little lies that we tell to amuse ourselves, those little scandals, the despising of the graces which God gives us at every moment, those little murmurings in the difficulties that He sends us!

--St. Jean Vianney, the Cure d’Ars

QUOTATION: Star of the Sea

The Blessed Virgin Mary is called the Star of the Sea. Those who sail the ocean seas are guided to the port they seek by carefully observing the stars. In the same way, Christians are guided to heavenly glory by keeping their eyes on Mary.

--St. Thomas Aquinas