QUOTATION: The Eucharist

For even as our bodily food is changed into our substance, so the Holy Eucharist transforms us into Jesus Christ.

--St. John Baptist de la Salle

QUOTATION: The Danger of Riches

The most obvious danger which worldly possessions present to our spiritual welfare is, that they become practically a substitute in our hearts for that One Object to which our supreme devotion is due. They are present; God is unseen. They are means at hand of effecting what we want: whether God will hear our petitions for those wants is uncertain; or rather I may say, certain in the negative. Thus they minister to the corrupt inclinations of our nature; they promise and are able to be gods to us, and such gods too as require no service, but, like dumb idols, exalt the worshipper, impressing him with a notion of his own power and security. And in this consist their chief and most subtle mischief.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "The Danger of Riches", Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 2

QUOTATION: Sickness

In sickness let us endeavor to resign ourselves entirely to the will of God; no devout exercise is more acceptable to him than this.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist

QUOTATION: Sickness

There are some sick persons who, seeing themselves stretched on a bed of pain, complain, not so much indeed of their sorrows as of their inability to render Our Lord the services they were accustomed to render Him in health. In acting thus, they greatly deceive themselves, for one hour of suffering through love and submission to the will of God, is worth more than many days of labour with less love.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Jesus' Love

When you look at the Crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.

--Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

QUOTATION: Christ's Love

It was love that motivated His self-emptying, that led Him to become a little lower than angels, to be subject to parents, to bow His head beneath the Baptist's hands, to endure the weakness of the flesh, and to submit to death even upon the cross,

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux

QUOTATION: Transubstantiation

For One in such a lofty position to stoop so low is a marvel that is staggering. What sublime humility and humble sublimeness, that the Lord of the Universe, the Divine Son of God, should stoop as to hide Himself under the appearance of bread for our salvation! Behold the humble way of God, my brothers. Therefore, do not hold yourselves to be anything of yourselves, so that you may be entirely acceptable to One Who gives Himself entirely to you.

--St. Francis of Assisi

QUOTATION: The Multiplication of the Loaves

If Christ did not want to dismiss the Jews without food in the desert for fear that they would collapse on the way, it was to teach us that it is dangerous to try to get to heaven without the Bread of Heaven.

--St. Jerome

QUOTATION: Our Eucharistic Lord

How many of you say: I should like to see His face, His garments, His shoes. You do see Him, you touch Him, you eat Him. He gives Himself to you, not only that you may see Him, but also to be your food and nourishment.

--St. John Chrysostom

QUOTATION: The Eucharist

This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God's Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.

--St. Justin Martyr

QUOTATION: Anger

The old Adam is wrathful by nature, and the more so in proportion to his pride. Every proud man is violent, severe, and choleric. Impatience is nourished by pride, it is its voice and gesture. Wrath rests on the love that man entertains for himself, for his own ease, his own natural happiness. It is man's resistance to whatever tends to snatch from him what he loves. It is the cry of self-love and egoism.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Speech

Henceforward consider your neighbor's character as a forbidden tree which you cannot touch. Be no less slow in praising yourself

than in censuring others, for the first indicates vanity and the second a want of charity. Speak of the virtues of your neighbor, but be silent as to his faults. Let nothing that you say lead others to think that he is naught but a man of virtue and honor. You will thus avoid innumerable sins and much remorse of conscience; you will be pleasing to God and men; and you will be respected by all as you respect others.

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: Reason Alone Can't Save Us

Reason can but ascertain the profound difficulties of our condition, it cannot remove them.

--Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: Trials and Tribulations

We must patiently endure the tribulations of this life-- ill-health, sorrows, poverty, losses, bereavement of kindred, affronts, persecutions, and all that is disagree able. Let us invariably look on the trials of this world as signs of God's love towards us, and of his desire to save us in the world to come. And let us, moreover, be fully persuaded that the involuntary mortifications which God himself sends us are far more pleasing to him than those which are the fruit of our own choice.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist

QUOTATION: Complaining

Do not refrain when you desire to complain; but I would wish that this be done to God with a filial spirit, as a tender child does to its mother; for provided it be done lovingly, there is no danger in complaining, or in asking a cure, or in changing place, or in being comforted; only do it with love and resignation into the arms of the most holy will of God.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: When You Receive Crosses...

Whenever you receive any cross, always welcome it with humility and gratitude. And when God favours you with a cross of some importance, show your gratitude in a special way, and get others to thank him for you. Follow the example of the poor woman who lost all that she had in an unjust law- suit and immediately offered her few remaining coins to have a Mass said in thanksgiving for her good fortune.

--St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross

QUOTATION: Wasted Pain

One of the greatest tragedies in the world is wasted pain. Pain without relation to the cross is like an unsigned check - without value. But once we have it countersigned with the Signature of the Saviour on the Cross, it takes on an infinite value.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, About Crosses

QUOTATION: Few Words, Many Deeds

Remember that the Christian life is one of action; not of speech and daydreams. Let there be few words and many deeds, and let them be done well.

--St. Vincent Pallotti

QUOTATION: Our Spiritual Poverty

If we knew the depth of our poverty, we would not be at all surprised by our falls, but rather astonished, and we would thank God, after sinning, for not allowing us to fall even deeper and still more frequently.

--St. Maximillian Kolbe

QUOTATION: Prayer

Prayer is like Thanksgiving dinner. It takes one hour to eat it and ten hours to prepare it.

--Peter Kreeft

QUOTATION: Politics

[Catholics] have an obligation to get involved in politics. We can't play the role of Pontius Pilate and wash our hands of it. It's easy to blame others. But people need to ask themselves: Me? What am I doing about it?

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Correct Vice with its Opposite Virtue

If you are tempted to gluttony or sensuality, retrench something from your usual repasts, even though they in no way exceed the limits of sobriety, and give yourself with more fervor to fasting and other practices of devotion. If you are assailed by avarice, increase the amount of your alms and the number of your good works. If you feel the promptings of vainglory, lose no opportunity of accepting humiliations. Then, perhaps, the devil may fear to tempt you, seeing that you convert his snares into occasions of virtue, and that he only affords you opportunities of greater good.

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: Loving People

To love men for themselves is time and trouble lost. Men are sacks full of holes. He who puts his treasures in them, is sure to lose them.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Toleration of Vice

It has come to pass, that Christians, by a sort of tacit agreement, wink at each other's faults, and keep silence; whereas, if each of us forced himself to make his neighbour sensible when he did wrong, he would both benefit another, and, through God's blessing, would bind himself also to a more consistent profession. Who can say how much harm is done by thus countenancing the imperfections of our friends and equals? The standard of Christian morals is lowered; the service of God is mixed up with devotion to Mammon; and thus society is constantly tending to a heathen state. And this culpable toleration of vice is sanctioned by the manners of the present age, which seems to consider it a mark of good breeding not to be solicitous about the faith or conduct of those around us, as if their private views and habits were nothing to us; which would have more pretence of truth in it, were they merely our fellow-creatures, but is evidently false in the case of those who all the while profess to be Christians, who imagine that they gain the privileges of the Gospel by their profession, while they bring scandal on it by their lives.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Rebuking Sin", Parochial and Plain Sermons

QUOTATION: Mortal Sin

Here it will be well to remark, what is unanimously admitted by all theologians, even of the rigorist school, that persons who have during a considerable period of time been leading a virtuous life, and live habitually in the fear of God, whenever they are in doubt, and are not certain whether they have given consent to a grievous sin, ought to be perfectly assured that they have not lost the divine grace; for it is morally impossible that the will, confirmed in its good purposes for a considerable lapse of time, should on a sudden undergo so total a change as at once to consent to a mortal sin without clearly knowing it; the reason of it is, that mortal sin is so horrible a monster that it cannot possible enter a soul by which it has long been held in abhorrence, without her being fully aware of it.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Holy Eucharist

QUOTATION: Illness as Sacrifice

The bed of the sick is an altar of sacrifice . . . Happy is the just man who disturbs not the sacrifice by his murmurs and his cries, who adores the beneficent hand that is hidden under the instruments which is vouchsafes to employ, who blesses the salutary strokes, who feels the honour of the distinction! How brilliant will his soul depart from the crucible of tribulation! It is as gold tried seven times, it is marked with the seal of the elect, it bears the impress of Jesus Christ.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Three Types of Complaining

There are three kinds of complaints we may make in times of distress. The first is natural and spontaneous, as when the body groans and complains, weeps and laments. There is no fault in this, provided, as I have said, that the heart is resigned to the will of God. The second kind of complaint is that of the mind, as when we make known our ills to someone who can give us some relief, such as a doctor or a superior. There may be some imperfection in this if we are too eager to tell our troubles, but there is no sin in it. The third kind is sinful: that is when we criticise our neighbour either to get rid of an evil which afflicts us or to take revenge on him; or when we willfully complain of what we suffer with impatience and murmuring.

--St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross

QUOTATION: Liberal Catholics

Amongst Catholic Liberals, many go to Mass, even make novenas, and yet when they come into contact with the world, they lead the lives of practical Liberals. They make it a rule "to live up to the times" as they call it. The Church they believe to be somewhat out-of-date, an old fogy, that she is held back by a certain set of reactionaries, ultramontanes; but they have hopes that she will in the course of time catch up with the modern spirit of progress, of which they are the van. The barnacles of medievalism still encumber the Barque of Peter, but time, they believe, will remedy this. The straw of medieval philosophy and theology they hope before long to thrash out by the introduction of the modern spirit into her schools.

Then will a new theology be developed, more in conformity with the needs of the times, more in harmony with the modern spirit, which makes such large demands upon our "intellectual liberty" so they believe (or imagine they believe) that all is well. Is their responsibility before God therefore lessened? Assuredly not. They sin directly in the light of faith. They are less excusable than those Liberals who have never been within the pale of the Church. In short they sin with their eyes open.

--Felix Sarda y Salvany, Liberalism is a Sin

QUOTATION: Falls from Grace

My beloved, may every fall, even if it is serious and habitual sin, always become for us a small step toward a higher degree of perfection.

In fact, the only reason why the Immaculate permits us to fall is to cure us from our self-conceit, from our pride, to make us humble and thus make us docile to the divine graces.

The devil, instead, tries to inject in us discouragement and internal depression in those circumstances, which is, in fact, nothing else than our pride surfacing again.

--St. Maximillian Kolbe

QUOTATION: Truth

When lies have been accepted for some time, the truth always astounds with an air of novelty.

--St Clement of Alexandria