QUOTATION: Why God Sends Us Crosses

He sends us crosses, not because He wishes evil to us, but because He desires our welfare, and because He knows that they are conducive to our salvation.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: The Only Time The Lord Asked The Apostles Anything

The only time our Lord asked the Apostles for anything, was the night He went into agony. Not for activity did He plead but for an Hour of Companionship.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Where to Find Happiness

Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple – true happiness is to be found in God. We need to have the courage to place our deepest hopes in God alone, not in money, in a career, in worldly success, or in our relationships with others, but in God. Only he can satisfy the deepest needs of our hearts.

--Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Sexual Freedom

Authentic sexual freedom is not freedom to indulge your compulsions but rather freedom from the compulsion to indulge.

--Christopher West

QUOTATION: Unrepented Sin

A sin not quickly repented of is both a sin and a cause of sin.

--Pope St. Gregory I

QUOTATION: Valuing Christ

Christ is not valued at all, unless he is valued above all.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Hope of Salvation

The Good Lord doesn't ask us to be martyred, he created a life easier than that for us. He asks us to live as a good Christian, and to properly observe the commandments that the Church requires us to follow, such as charity, the love of God and neighbour, and to always be ready for all sacrifices for the defense of the Catholic Church. And if we put into practice what the Church asks of us,  we have reason to hope that the day will come when the Good Lord will welcome us in his blessed eternity of heaven, with all those who are waiting for us.

--St. Andre Bessette, as quoted in Frère André disait souvent... Recueil de paroles de Frère André rapportées par ses amis.

QUOTATION: Fasting

We have to experience the profundity of not placing so much importance on the food with which we deprive ourselves as on the food that we make available to the hungry person through our privations. May our voluntary fast be what prevents so many involuntary fasts among the poor.  Let us choose to fast so that no one else is forced to.

--Pope Francis (Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio), Lenten Gesture of Solidarity, 2011

QUOTATION: Pious Books

Endeavor to have always in your hand a pious book, that with this shield you may defend yourself against bad thoughts.

--St. Jerome

QUOTATION: The Risks of Testimony

The more lurid the old adam, the more impressive the new, so that, in testifying, converts have a way of dwelling upon their past sins and misdemeanours in such detail and so ardently that an element of exhibitionism and even spiritual pornography-- if there is such a thing-- is liable to creep in.

--Malcolm Muggeridge, Conversion: A Spiritual Journey

QUOTATION: Worldliness

The world hates Christians, so why give your love to it instead of following Christ, who loves you and has redeemed you?

-- St. Cyprian of Carthage

QUOTATION: Confessing Venial Sins

It is, however, as says the Council of Trent, a laudable and salutary custom to confess all the venial sins that we remember. But what I wish is that you do not go too much into detail, be not too punctilious in your accusations. God does not exact so rigorous an examen. It is that rigor which exposes you to the loss of liberty and peace of mind, of sweet and gentle piety of heart.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Fear of Men

If you fear men beyond measure, you will never do anything great for God.

--St. Ignatius Loyola

QUOTATION: Love of God

Love for our Father does not walk a path carpeted in flowers.

--St. Therese of Lisieux

QUOTATION: Indifference Towards the Fate of Souls

There is nothing colder than a Christian who is unconcerned about the salvation of others.

--St. John Chrysostom

QUOTATION: Prayers and Sacrifices

Just as the clouds will pick up moisture from the sea and carry it over a mountaintop and then drop it on arid land, so too the prayers and sacrifices that we offer are carried by the Holy Spirit and dropped on other souls that need it.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Jesus is Not an Abstraction

It is very much the fashion at present to regard the Saviour of the world in an irreverent and unreal way—as a mere idea or vision; to speak of Him so narrowly and unfruitfully, as if we only knew of His name; though Scripture has set Him before us in His actual sojourn on earth, in His gestures, words, and deeds, in order that we may have that on which to fix our eyes. And till we learn to do this, to leave off vague statements about His love, His willingness to receive the sinner, His imparting repentance and spiritual aid, and the like, and view Him in His particular and actual works, set before us in Scripture, surely we have not derived from the Gospels that very benefit which they are intended to convey.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus", Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 3  

QUOTATION: Mary's Sorrows

Human beings will never comprehend sufficiently the anguish and immensity of Mary’s sorrows. Very few Christians partake of those sufferings and even fewer offer any consolation to her.

--St. Bridget of Sweden

QUOTATION: Vatican II

The goal of Vatican II was not to modernize the Church but to Christify the world.

--Fr. Robert Barron

QUOTATION: When it's You Against the World

When all else has forsaken us, it is then that we are least forsaken by God.

--St Jane Frances de Chantal

QUOTATION: The Problem with Skeptics

I will not engage in verbal controversy with the skeptic, because long experience has taught me that the skeptic’s ultimate skepticism is about the use of his own words and the reliability of his own intelligence.

--G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Christ's Love is Greater than Our Doubts

The personal love Christ has for you is infinite-- the small difficulty you have regarding the Church is finite.  Overcome the finite with the infinite.

--Mother Teresa in a letter to Malcolm Muggeridge, as quoted in his Conversion: A Spiritual Journey

QUOTATION: Don't Get Used to It

We are in danger! As a society we have, little by little, become used to hearing and seeing distasteful news every day through the media.  What's worse, we have also become accustomed to seeing it and feeling it around us without calling forth any response, or at most, a superficial and noncommittal comment.  The wound is in the street, in the neighbourhood, in our homes, but like deaf and blind people, we live with the violence that kills, destroys families and neighbourhoods, gives rise to wars and conflicts in so many places, and we look at it as one more video.  The suffering of so many peaceful and innocent people has ceased to shock us; disregard for the rights of persons and whole peoples, poverty and misery, the rule of corruption, the drug assassin, forced child prostitution: it all becomes commonplace, and we pay without asking for a receipt, although sooner or later we are going to get the bill.

All of these realities, and many more, are not silent. They cry out to each and every one of us and speak to us of our limitations, our weakness, our sin-- in spite of the fact that we have gotten used to it.

Becoming used to something tells us seductively that there is no sense in trying to change it, that we cannot do anything in the face of it, that it's always been that way, and that, anyway, we'll survive it. We give up our opposition, allowing things 'to be what they are'-- or at least what some have decided they are.

--Pope Francis (Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio), Lenten Gesture of Solidarity, 2010

QUOTATION: The Rule of Bad Men

It is by divine permission that wicked men receive power to rule as a punishment for sin, as the Lord says by the Prophet Hosea (13:11): “I will give you a king in my wrath” and it is said in Job (34:30) that he “makes a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people.” Sin must therefore be done away with in order that the scourge of tyrants may cease."

--St. Thomas Aquinas, On Kingship to the King of Cyprus

QUOTATION: Trust in the Power of God

 Remember, never to fear the power of evil more than your trust in the power and love of God.

--St. Hermas, one of the Seventy.

QUOTATION: The Futility of Putting Off Repentance

Men have not enough horror for sin, and when they commit it, they have not sufficient courage to do penance for it as they should. They  hope, and they say: " When I get sick, I will go to confession. I will make a good act of contrition, and secure my salvation that way. " No, no! Illusion! Our Lord has promised to come to us like a thief. He will laugh at us, and frustrate all our plans.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Prayer

Ask those who love Him with a sincere love, and they will tell you that they find no greater or prompter relief amid the troubles of their life than in loving conversation with their Divine Friend.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: The Church

We deplore and condemn the pernicious error of those who dream of an imaginary Church, a kind of society that finds its origin and growth in charity, to which, somewhat contemptuously, they oppose another, which they call juridical. But this distinction which they introduce is false: for they fail to understand that the reason which led our Divine Redeemer to give to the community of man He founded the constitution of a Society, perfect of its kind and containing all the juridical and social elements - namely, that He might perpetuate on earth the saving work of Redemption.

--Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi

QUOTATION: Silly Prayers

If God had granted all the silly prayers I've made in my life, where should I be now?

--C.S. Lewis

QUOTATION: God Uses Those Outside the Fold

God works wondrously in the world; and at certain eras His providence puts on a new aspect. Religion seems to be failing, when it is merely changing its form. God seems for an instant to desert His own appointed instruments, and to be putting honour upon such as have been framed in express disobedience to His commands. For instance, sometimes He brings about good by means of wicked men, or seems to bless the efforts of those who have separated from His Holy Church more than those of His true labourers. Here is the trial of the Christian's faith, who, if the fact is so, must not resist it, lest haply he be found fighting against God, nor must he quarrel with it [...] But he must take everything as God's gift, hold fast his principles, not give them up because appearances are for the moment against them, but believe all things will come round at length.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Contracted Views in Religion", Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 3

QUOTATION: Prayer

Prayer begins by talking to God, but it ends by listening.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Go Bug Your Guardian Angel

The Good Lord gave each of us a Guardian Angel. It's so that we should make use of him, tell him what's happening to us, and, in a matter of speaking, bug him, with our requests.

--St. Andre Bessette, as quoted in Frère André disait souvent... Recueil de paroles de Frère André rapportées par ses amis.

QUOTATION: To Console

To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, "You are not alone, I am with you."

--Fr. Henri Nouwen