Monday, August 31, 2015

QUOTATION: Silence

St. Anthony of Padua
Whosoever looks into murky and agitated waters cannot see his own countenance. If you want the face of Christ to appear in your countenance, pause, recollect your thoughts in silence, and shut the door of the soul to the noise of exterior things. 

--St. Anthony of Padua

Sunday, August 30, 2015

QUOTATION: The Privatization of Religion

Cardinal Josef Mindszenty
Societies which regard religion as a personal matter unrelated to the conduct of public life, will soon be swallowed up in corruption, violence, and sin.

--Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, Address of October 20, 1946 cited in Memoirs, 1974

QUOTATION: God's Mercy

St. Peter Julian Eymard
The malice of him who abuses the choice graces  of God is so great, and men are so alive to the fact of its deserving His vengeance that the majority of those that fall after having been loaded with special privileges of grace by the good God, remain in evil, not so much because they love evil as because they despair of pardon for a sin so great as theirs. Every sinner, however. must of necessity consider God under the aspect of His mercy. Before His other attributes, His sanctity, His majesty, His justice, he would feel crushed.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

Saturday, August 29, 2015

QUOTATION: Humilty

Archbishop Fulton J. SheenThere are certain psychological and spiritual conditions which are essential for the discovery of truth, and the most important of these is the virtue of humility. Humility is not a want of moral force; rather humility is recognition of the truth about us. To explore the Truth in all its complexity there must come moments when we confess ignorance, when we frankly admit that we are mistaken or bigoted or prejudiced. These admissions are painful, but they actually enrich character just as much as all approximations to falsehood forfeit it. If we are proud, covetous, conceited, selfish, lustful, constantly wanting our own way, it is far better to come face to face with our own ugliness than live in a fool's paradise.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Way to Inner Peace

Friday, August 28, 2015

QUOTATION: Death

St. Andre Bessette
When we have lived a good life, we must not fear death: it's the gate to heaven.  There is so little distance between heaven and earth, that God always hears us.  Only a veil separates us from God.

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

Thursday, August 27, 2015

QUOTATION: Gentleness

St. Bernard of Clairvaux
As without faith it is impossible to please God, so without mildness it is impossible to please men and to govern them well.

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

QUOTATION: The Role of The Church in a Free-Market Democracy

Democracy and the free economy are not machines that can run by themselves. It takes a certain kind of people, possessed of certain virtues, to run self-governing polities and market economies so that they do not self-destruct. The task of the moral-cultural sector is to form these habits of heart and mind in people, and the primary public task of the Church is form that moral-cultural sector.  Thus the Church is not in the business of proposing technical solutions to questions of governance or economic activity; it is not within the Church's competence to decide whether bicameral legislatures are superior to unicameral legislatures, or whether parliamentary systems are preferable to presidential systems, or where the top marginal tax rate should be set. The Church is in the business of forming the culture that can form the kind of people who can craft political, economic, and social policy against the horizon of transcendant moral truths, truths that can be known by human reason.  

--George Weigel, "The Free and Virtuous Society", in Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace, 2008

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

QUOTATION: God's Love

Pope Francis
Everyone needs to be touched by the comfort and attraction of God’s saving love, which is mysteriously at work in each person, above and beyond their faults and failings.

--Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

Monday, August 24, 2015

QUOTATION: Our Friends and Family in Heaven Know Us

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
Further, since beatitude is a perfect state which satisfies all legitimate desires, each saint knows all others who are blessed, particularly those whom he has known and loved on earth. He knows their state, be they on earth or in purgatory. Thus the founder of an order knows all that concerns his religious family, knows the prayers which his sons address to him. Parents know the spiritual needs of their children who are still in this world. A friend, reaching the end of his course, knows how to facilitate the voyage of friends who address themselves to him. St. Cyprian speaks thus: "All our friends who have arrived wait for us. They desire vividly that we participate in their own beatitude, and are full of solicitude in our regard."

--Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

QUOTATION: Ecumenical Councils

St. Francis de Sales
In Ecumenical Councils there are many lively debates and a profound search for the truth through reasoning, theological argument and council interventions; however once a subject has been debated, it is up to the Council Fathers – that is, the Bishops and especially the Pope who is the Chief of the Bishops – to decide, to reach a conclusion, to determine the mind of the Council. Once their determination has been made, everyone should acquiesce in it and accept it, not because of the arguments that were advanced in favor of the final determination, or the research that preceded it, but rather because of the authority of the Holy Spirit. Invisibly presiding at Ecumenical Councils, the Holy Spirit it is who really judges and determines by means of the mouths of His servants who have been established by Him as the Pastors of Christendom. All the reasoning, theological argument and council interventions are made, as it were, in front of the Church; while the actual decisions and determinations of the Council Fathers are made in the sanctuary, where the Holy Spirit does speak through the mouths of the visible heads of the local churches, just as Jesus Christ promised.

--St. Francis de Sales

Sunday, August 23, 2015

QUOTATION: Self-Betrayal

Blessed John Henry Newman
Certainly it cannot be denied that, if we surrender our hearts to Christ and obey God, we shall be in the number of the few. So it has been in every age, so it will be to the end of time. It is hard, indeed, to find a man who gives himself up honestly to his Saviour. In spite of all the mercies poured upon us, yet in one way or other we are in danger of being betrayed by our own hearts, and taking up with a pretence of religion instead of the substance. 

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "The Visible Church an Encouragement to Faith, " Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 3

Saturday, August 22, 2015

QUOTATION: Desires

Thomas a Kempis
Nothing gives more trouble and affliction than uncontrolled desires of the heart.

--Thomas a Kempis

Friday, August 21, 2015

QUOTATION: No Man is an Island

Pope Benedict XVI
No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone.

--Pope Benedict XVI

Thursday, August 20, 2015

QUOTATION: Human Dignity

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II)
The dignity of man, the dignity of the human person, has to be defended; but that dignity must not be made to consist in unbridled exercise of one's own freedom. And the freedom sought after by the campaigners in favour of abortion is a freedom at the service of pleasure unrestrained by norms of any kind.

--Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II), Sign of Contradiction, 1977

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

QUOTATION: Loneliness

Flannery O'Connor
 I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God.

--Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal, 14/4/1947

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

QUOTATION: Fraternal Correction

St. Ambrose of Milan
If you detect some vice in your friend, correct him privately; if he does not listen, correct him publicly. For corrections are good, and often better than an unresponsive friendship. Should a friend think he is being wronged, correct him nonetheless. Even if his soul is wounded by the bitterness of correction, correct him nonetheless. Wounds from a friend are better than the fraudulent kisses of an enemy.

--St. Ambrose

Monday, August 17, 2015

QUOTATION: Pride

C.S. Lewis
Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Sunday, August 16, 2015

QUOTATION: God's Mercy

St. Peter Julian Eymard
The days of our life are much less numerous than our sins, for; we can offend by every one of our thoughts, and even mix up sin with our good works. We should have to despair at having sinned so much, of feeling ourselves again so borne to evil, if God were not infinitely good.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

Saturday, August 15, 2015

QUOTATION: Evangelization

St. Andre Bessette
If a person can save the wayward soul of his neighbour, he will save his own.

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

Friday, August 14, 2015

QUOTATION: Living in Solidarity

A genuinely human society flourishes when individuals dedicate the exercise of their freedom to the defense of others' rights and the pursuit of the common good, and when the community supports individuals as they grow into a truly mature humanity-- that is what "living in solidarity" means.

--George Weigel, "The Free and Virtuous Society", in Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace, 2008

Thursday, August 13, 2015

QUOTATION: What Belief in God Means

St. Anthony of Padua
To believe in God — for Christians — does not mean simply to believe that God exists, nor merely to believe that He is true. It means to believe by loving, to believe by abandoning oneself to God, uniting and conforming oneself to Him. 

--St. Anthony of Padua

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

QUOTATION: The Suffering of Our Lord

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
I wonder maybe if our Lord does not suffer more from our indifference, than He did from the crucifixion.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

QUOTATION: Orthodoxy Isn't Enough

Pope Francis

It is not enough that our truth be orthodox and our pastoral action efficient.  Without the joy of beauty, the truth becomes cold, even heartless and arrogant, as we see in the speech of many embittered fundamentalists. It is as if they were chewing on ashes instead of savoring the glorious sweetness of Christ's truth, which illuminates all of reality with a gentle glow, accepting as it is each day.

Without the joy of beauty, any work for the good becomes a gloomy concern for efficiency, as it is for many overwhelmed activists.  They go about clothing reality with mournful statistics instead of anointing it with the oil of inner gladness that transforms hearts, one by one, from within.

--Pope Francis (Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio),  Homily at the Chrism Mass, 2011

Monday, August 10, 2015

QUOTATION: Priests

St. Peter Julian Eymard
Priests do not exist to give certificates of virtue to the just, but to absolve and console poor sinners.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

Sunday, August 9, 2015

QUOTATION: Modern Civilization

Georges BernanosWe understand absolutely nothing about modern civilization if we do not admit first of all that it is a universal conspiracy against every kind of interior life.

--Georges Bernanos, La France contre les robots 

Saturday, August 8, 2015

QUOTATION: God's Presence

Pope St. Gregory I
God by a common mode is in all things by His presence, power and substance; still He is said to be present more familiarly in some by grace.

--Pope St. Gregory I, Homily 8 on Ezechiel

Friday, August 7, 2015

QUOTATION: The Servant is Not Greater Than the Master

St. Jean Vianney, the Cure of Ars
A good Religious complained one day: 'O Lord, what have I done to be treated thus?' Our Lord answered him: 'And I, what had I done when I was led to Calvary?'

--St. Jean Vianney, the Curé of Ars

Thursday, August 6, 2015

QUOTATION: The Church's Authority


It may be said that the Church has forfeited its early privileges, by allowing itself to remain in a state of sin and disorder which Christ never intended: for instance, "that from time to time there have been great corruptions in it, especially under the ascendancy of the Papal power: that there have been very many scandalous appointments to its highest dignities, that infidels have been bishops, that men have administered baptism or ordination, not believing that grace was imparted in those sacred ordinances, and that, in particular in our own country, heretics and open sinners, whom Christ would have put out of the Church, are suffered, by a sin on the part of the Church, to remain within it unrebuked, uncondemned." This is what is sometimes said; and I confess, had we not Scripture to consult, it would be a very specious argument against the Church's present power, now at the distance of eighteen hundred years from the Apostles. It would certainly seem as if, the conditions not having been fully observed on which that power was granted, it was forfeited. But here the case of the Jewish Church affords us the consoling certainty, that God does not so visit, even though He might, and that His gifts and calling "are without repentance." [Rom. xi. 29.] Christ's Church cannot be in a worse condition than that of Israel when He visited it in the flesh; yet He expressly assures us that in His day "the Scribes and Pharisees," wicked men as they were, "sat in Moses' seat," and were to be obeyed in what they taught; and we find, in accordance with this information, that Caiaphas, "because he was the high priest," had the gift of prophecy—had it, though he did not know he had it, nay, in spite of his being one of the foremost in accomplishing our Lord's crucifixion. Surely, then, we may infer, that, however fallen the Church now is from what it once was, however unconscious of its power, it still has the gift, as of old time, to convey and withdraw the Christian privileges, "to bind and to loose," to consecrate, to bless, to teach the Truth in all necessary things, to rule, and to prevail.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "The Church Visible and Invisible", Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 3

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

QUOTATION: Jesus is Not an Abstraction

Blessed John Henry Newman

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. Nay, we are in some danger, perhaps, even as regards our faith; for, it is to be feared, while the thought of Christ is but a creation of our minds, it may gradually be changed or fade away, it may become defective or perverted; whereas, when we contemplate Christ as manifested in the Gospels, the Christ who exists therein, external to our own imaginings, and who is as really a living being, and sojourned on earth as truly as any of us, then we shall at length believe in Him with a conviction, a confidence, and an entireness, which can no more be annihilated than the belief in our senses. It is impossible for a Christian mind to meditate on the Gospels, without feeling, beyond all manner of doubt, that He who is the subject of them is God; but it is very possible to speak in a vague way of His love towards us, and to use the name of Christ, yet not at all to realize that He is the Living Son of the Father, or to have any anchor for our faith within us, so as to be fortified against the risk of future defection.

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

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

QUOTATION: Away from Communion

St. John Bosco
The longer you stay away from Communion, the more your soul will become weak, and in the end you will become dangerously indifferent.

--St. John Bosco

Monday, August 3, 2015

QUOTATION: The Difference Between Loneliness and Solitude

Henri Nouwen
Loneliness is painful; Solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

--Henri Nouwen

Sunday, August 2, 2015

QUOTATION: The Humble Person

St. Jean Vianney, the Cure of Ars
A humble person, whether he is laughed at or esteemed, or praised, or blamed, whether he is honored or despised, whether people pay attention to him or pass him by, it is all the same to him.

--St. Jean Vianney, the Curé of Ars

Saturday, August 1, 2015

QUOTATION: Self-Will

Peter Kreeft
The national anthem of Hell is 'I did it my way'.

--Peter Kreeft