QUOTATION: Complaining

The more we complain of our trials the heavier our burden grows.

--Blessed Giles of Assisi

QUOTATION: Perfect Love of Jesus Christ

But in order to arrive at  the  perfect love of Jesus Christ, we must adopt the means. Behold, then, the means which St. Thomas Aquinas gives us:

1. To have a constant remembrance of the benefits of God, both general and particular.

2. To consider the infinite goodness of God, who is ever waiting to do us good, and who ever loves us, and seeks from us our love.

3. To avoid even the smallest thing that could offend him.

4. To renounce all the sensible goods of this world, riches, honors, and sensual pleasures.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist

QUOTATION: God's Judgement and Mercy

If man excuses himself, God accuses him; if man accuses himself, God excuses him.

--St Francis of Assisi

QUOTATION: Evangelization

Christ sought not to gain fisherman through the orator, but by the fisherman, the emperor.

--St Augustine

QUOTATION: Gluttony

The glutton exceeds moderation either in what he eats, how much he eats, how he eats, or when he eats.

--St Isidore of Seville

QUOTATION: Modern Religion

Now conscience is a stern, gloomy principle; it tells us of guilt and of prospective punishment. Accordingly, when its terrors disappear, then disappear also, in the creed of the day, those fearful images of Divine wrath with which the Scriptures abound. They are explained away. Every thing is bright and cheerful. Religion is pleasant and easy; benevolence is the chief virtue; intolerance, bigotry, excess of zeal, are the first of sins.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "The Religion of the Day", Parochial and Plain Sermons

QUOTATION: Pomp

Above all, you must be rid of the hideous idea, fruit of a widespread inferiority complex, that pomp, on the proper occasions, has any connexion with vanity or self-conceit. A celebrant approaching the altar, a princess led out by a king to dance a minuet, a general officer on a ceremonial parade, a major-domo preceding the boar’s head at a Christmas feast — all these wear unusual clothes and move with calculated dignity. This does not mean that they are vain, but that they are obedient; they are obeying the hoc age which presides over every solemnity. The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.

--C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

QUOTATION: Self-Love

Self-love exaggerates in our eyes and hearts the wrongs we have received.

--St Francis de Sales

QUOTATION: Mortification

When the devil cannot turn a soul away from virtue, he tries to urge it to excessive mortification.

--St Jerome

QUOTATION: Venial Sin

For you must keep in mind that the shedding of Our Lord's blood and the sacrifice of His life were just as necessary to wipe out venial sin as to deliver you from mortal sin. Remember that anyone who attaches little importance to venial sin will soon fall into mortal sin. If you do not find these resolutions in you own soul, pray to Our Lord to put them there, and do not rest until you possess these dispositions. For you ought to know that as long as you do not have the will to die or suffer every kind of disgrace and torture rather than commit any sin, you are not a true Christian.

--St. John Eudes, The Four Foundations of Sanctity

QUOTATION: Temptation

The more virtue a man has, the more he will be tempted, and the greater hatred must he have for vice.

--Blessed Giles of Assisi

QUOTATION: Christ Without The Cross

The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, colorless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces, sustained sometimes by academic etymologists who cannot see the Word for the letters, or distorted beyond personal recognition by a dogmatic principle that anything which is Divine must necessarily be a myth. Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears.

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ

QUOTATION: Zeal

I have learned that zeal is an ardent and violent love that needs to be wisely controlled. Otherwise it might go beyond the limits of modesty and discretion. Not because divine love, however violent, can be excessive in itself, nor in the movements and inclinations it gives to our spirits, but because our understanding fails to choose the proper means or else uses them in a disorderly manner. Uncontrolled zeal takes us over rough and wild roads; moved by anger it fails to keep within the bounds of reason and pushes the heart into disorder. This is how zeal acts indiscreetly, intemperately, so that it becomes evil and reprehensible.

--St. Anthony Mary Claret

QUOTATION: Scripture

To read Sacred Scriptures means to turn to Christ for advice.

--St. Francis of Assisi

QUOTATION: Doctrine

Under no circumstances can we conceive of the possibility of change, of evolution, or of any modification in matters of faith. The Creed remains always the same.

--Pope Paul VI

QUOTATION: St. Joseph

Some saints are privileged to extend to us their patronage with particular efficacy in certain needs, but not in others; but our holy patron St. Joseph has the power to assist us in all cases, in every necessity, in every undertaking.

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: Why Didn't Jesus Reveal Himself to All After the Resurrection?

Now consider what would have been the probable effect of a public exhibition of His resurrection. Let us suppose that our Saviour had shown Himself as openly as before He suffered; preaching in the Temple and in the streets of the city; traversing the land with His Apostles, and with multitudes following to see the miracles which He did. What would have been the effect of this? Of course, what it had already been. His former miracles had not effectually moved the body of the people; and, doubtless, this miracle too would have left them as it found them, or worse than before. They might have been more startled at the time; but why should this amazement last? When the man taken with a palsy was suddenly restored at His word, the multitude were all amazed, and glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things today." [Luke v. 26.] What could they have said and felt more than this, when "one rose from the dead"? In truth, this is the way of the mass of mankind in all ages, to be influenced by sudden fears, sudden contrition, sudden earnestness, sudden resolves, which disappear as suddenly. Nothing is done effectually through untrained human nature; and such is ever the condition of the multitude. Unstable as water, it cannot excel. One day it cried Hosanna; the next, Crucify Him. And, had our Lord appeared to them after they had crucified Him, of course they would have shouted Hosanna once more; and when He had ascended out of sight, then again they would have persecuted His followers. Besides, the miracle of the Resurrection was much more exposed to the cavils of unbelief than others which our Lord had displayed; than that, for instance, of feeding the multitudes in the wilderness. Had our Lord appeared in public, yet few could have touched Him, and certified themselves it was He Himself. Few, comparatively, in a great multitude could so have seen Him both before and after His death, as to be adequate witnesses of the reality of the miracle. It would have been open to the greater number of them still to deny that He was risen. This is the very feeling St. Matthew records. When He appeared on a mountain in Galilee to His apostles and others, as it would seem (perhaps the five hundred brethren mentioned by St. Paul), "some doubted" whether it were He. How could it be otherwise? these had no means of ascertaining that they really saw Him who had been crucified, dead, and buried. Others, admitting it was Jesus, would have denied that He ever died. Not having seen Him dead on the cross, they might have pretended He was taken down thence before life was extinct, and so restored. This supposition would be a sufficient excuse to those who wished not to believe. And the more ignorant part would fancy they had seen a spirit without flesh and bones as man has. They would have resolved the miracle into a magical illusion, as the Pharisees had done before, when they ascribed His works to Beelzebub; and would have been rendered no better or more religious by the sight of Him, than the common people are now-a-days by tales of apparitions and witches.

Surely so it would have been; the chief priests would not have been moved at all; and the populace, however they had been moved at the time, would not have been lastingly moved, not practically moved, not so moved as to proclaim to the world what they had heard and seen, as to preach the Gospel. This is the point to be kept in view: and consider that the very reason why Christ showed Himself at all was in order to raise up witnesses  to His resurrection, ministers of His word, founders of His Church; and how in the nature of things could a populace ever become such?

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Witnesses of the Resurrection", Parochial and Plain Sermons

QUOTATION: The Price of Redemption

It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion.

--C.S. Lewis

QUOTATION: God

To examine whether your heart please Him is not necessary, but rather whether His heart pleases you.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Love of Crosses

On the Way of the Cross, you see, my children, only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross is the fear of crosses. . . . We have not the courage to carry our cross, and we are very much mistaken; for, whatever we do, the cross holds us tight - we cannot escape from it. What, then, have we to lose? Why not love our crosses and make use of them to take us to Heaven?

--St. Jean Vianney, The Cure of Ars

QUOTATION: To Be a Real Christian

As long as you do not have the will to die or suffer every kind of disgrace and torture rather than commit any sin, you are not a true Christian

--St. John Eudes, The Four Foundations of Sanctity

QUOTATION: Truth

Obedience to Truth is obedience to Love.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Fear of Hurting Feelings

You want people to suffer forever in hell but you don't want to hurt their feelings now? What kind of love is that?

--Mother Angelica

QUOTATION: Chastity

In a fight between vice and a man of vice, vice wins and pins the man down. This is why continence and chastity are praised so highly: because they enable a man to abstain from the pleasures and delights that nature and passion offer him.

--St. Anthony Mary Claret, Autobiography

QUOTATION: 17 Signs of a Lack of Humility

1. Thinking that what you do or say is better than what others do or say


2. Always wanting to get your own way


3. Arguing when you are not right or — when you are — insisting stubbornly or with bad manners


4. Giving your opinion without being asked for it, when charity does not demand you to do so


5. Despising the point of view of others


6. Not being aware that all the gifts and qualities you have are on loan


7. Not acknowledging that you are unworthy of all honour or esteem, even the ground you are treading on or the things you own


8. Mentioning yourself as an example in conversation


9. Speaking badly about yourself, so that they may form a good opinion of you, or contradict you


10. Making excuses when rebuked


11. Hiding some humiliating faults from your director, so that he may not lose the good opinion he has of you


12. Hearing praise with satisfaction, or being glad that others have spoken well of you


13. Being hurt that others are held in greater esteem than you


14. Refusing to carry out menial tasks


15. Seeking or wanting to be singled out


16. Letting drop words of self-praise in conversation, or words that might show your honesty, your wit or skill, your professional prestige…


17. Being ashamed of not having certain possessions…

--Josemaria Escriva

QUOTATION: Learning Biblical Wisdom

The wisdom of the Scriptures is learned rather by prayer than by study.

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Defend the Unborn

Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you. No child should be deprived of the right to be born.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Salvation

To save our souls we must live according to the maxims of the Gospel, and not according to those of the world.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Our Greatest Cross

Our greatest Cross is the fear of crosses

--St. Jean Vianney, the Curé of Ars

QUOTATION: Decide Once and For All

One time I heard a good seminarian say: I want to become a priest for ten years. Then I will think about it again. That's the culture of provisionality. Jesus did not save us provisionally, he saved us definitively.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Hope

Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Love

Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.

--St. John of the Cross

QUOTATION: The Essence of Christianity

Remember that the Christian life is one of action, not speech and daydreams.

--St.Vincent Pallotti

QUOTATION: Violence Cannot Defend Lies

An idea which needs rifles to survive dies of its own accord.

--Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko

QUOTATION: Tranquility and Wisdom

Thinking is associated rather with repose. This Aristotle himself teaches in Book VII of the Physics, where he says that if a man is to become wise he must first achieve an inward tranquility; which is why the young and the restless are not, as a rule, wise. Wisdom and prudence are acquired, says Aristotle, by one who is content to sit down and be quiet.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, I, lect. VIII, 125.

QUOTATION: The Poor

We must think of the poor not as a problem to be solved, but as people with potential to be unleashed.

--Pope John Paul II

QUOTATION: Grace Hurts

This notion that grace is healing omits the fact that before it heals, it cuts with the sword Christ said He came to bring.

--Flannery O'Connor

QUOTATION: Fear of Men

We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another.

--G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: The Suffering of the Damned

The greatest suffering of the damned is not physical, but moral suffering. Their greatest punishment is in the imagination, their memory, and their understanding.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Why did Christ show Himself to so few witnesses after He rose from the dead?

Why did Christ show Himself to so few witnesses after He rose from the dead? Because He was a King, a King exalted upon God's "Holy hill of Zion;" as the Psalm says which contains the text. Kings do not court the multitude, or show themselves as a spectacle at the will of others. They are the rulers of their people, and have their state as such, and are reverently waited on by their great men: and when they show themselves, they do so out of their condescension. They act by means of their servants, and must be sought by those who would gain favours from them.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Christian Reverence", Parochial and Plain Sermons

QUOTATION: Getting Over It

Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go to move forward.

--C.S. Lewis