QUOTATION: The Worldly Man

The worldly man bases his conduct on personal honour, on "What will people say?", on convention, on high living, on self-interest, on ceremonious manners, and on witty conversation. These seven principles are the irreproachable supports on which, he believes, he can safely depend to enjoy a peaceful life. The world will canonise him for such virtues as courage, finesse, tactfulness, shrewdness, gallantry, politeness and good humour. It stigmatises as serious offences, insensitiveness, stupidity, poverty, boorishness and bigotry. He obeys as faithfully as he can the commandments which the world gives him:

You shall be well acquainted with the world. You shall be respectable. You shall be successful in business. You shall hold on to whatever is yours. You shall rise above your background. You shall make friends for yourself. You shall frequent fashionable society. You shall seek the good life. You shall not be a kill-joy. You shall not be singular, uncouth or over-pious.

--St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom

QUOTATION: The Church

Without the Church, Jesus would be at the mercy of our imagination.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Goodness

Goodness always appears as a reproach to those who are not living right, and this reproach on the part of the sinner expresses itself in hatred and persecution.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul, 1949

QUOTATION: Before Christ

In the ancient world, man could orient himself to God through knowledge and love but that any notion of a relationship between the eternal God and temporal man was regarded as absurd and hence impossible.

--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Many Religions-- One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World, 1998

QUOTATION: Various Kinds of Tears

First of all, there are the tears of damnation, the tears of this world’s evil ones.

Second are the tears of fear, of those who weep for fear because they have risen up from the sin out of fear of punishment.

Third are those who have risen up from sin and are beginning to taste me. These weep tenderly and begin to serve me. But because their love is imperfect, so is their weeping.

The fourth stage is that of souls who have attained perfection in loving their neighbors and love me without any self-interest. These weep and their weeping is perfect.

The fifth stage (which is joined to the fourth) is that of sweet tears shed with great tenderness.

I will tell you, too, about tears of fire, shed without physical weeping, which often satisfy those who want to weep but cannot. And I want you to know that a soul can experience all of these different stages as she rises from fear and imperfect love to attain perfect love and the state of union.

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, quoted in Catherine of Siena, Passion for the Truth, Compassion for Humanity: selected spiritual writings, Mary O’Driscoll, Ed. 2005.

QUOTATION: What Bothers Jesus

[Jesus] didn't complain of big sinners, He didn't complain of the people who do bad things. He complained of people like you and me, Christians, who should be known by that love for one another.

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Where There is Love, There is God, Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ed

QUOTATION: The Four Qualities of the Glorified Body

Theologians distinguish four chief qualities in the glorified body: impassibility, subtility, agility, and clarity.

Impassibility is the gift which preserves not only from death, but also from pain. It arises from the perfect submission of the body to the soul.

Agility delivers bodies from the heaviness which weighs down the present life. The risen body can go where the soul pleases, with a swiftness and ease which St. Jerome compares to that of the eagle.

Subtility renders the body capable of penetrating other bodies without difficulty. Thus the glorious body of the risen Christ entered the Cenacle though the doors were closed.

Clarity gives to the body of the saints that brightness, that splendor, which is the very essence of the beautiful. Our Lord  says: "Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their father." To give an idea of this quality, He was transfigured before His apostles on Thabor. St. Paul says: "Jesus Christ will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of His glory."  The Israelites in the desert  saw an image of this glory on the forehead of Moses, after He had seen God and received God's words. He was so luminous that their eyes could not endure the splendor.

This clarity is but a reflection, an overflowing, of the glory of the soul on that of the body.  Hence the bodies of the saints will not all have the same degree of clarity, but each will have the degree proportioned to its light of glory. Thus St. Paul says: "Star differeth from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead."

--Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

QUOTATION: Silence

To speak seldom, and then but briefly, prevents sin. Where there is too much talk, God is in one way or another offended, and reputations suffer.

--St. Bonaventure, Holiness of Life

QUOTATION: The Desire for Heaven

The desire of heaven is holy. God wishes us frequently to desire it, and that is the reason He has filled our life with suffering, persecution, and the cross. It is for that He permits the inconstancy of human friendships. He does not want us to be attached to the goods of this world, nor to any one in the world. We are not made for one another, but for God alone. The happiness of this world is but a point without continuity, without length. One cannot attach himself to it for any length of time, cannot establish himself in it.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Errors in Reasoning

Errors in reasoning are lessons and warnings, not to give up reasoning, but to reason with greater caution. It is absurd to break up the whole structure of our knowledge, which is the glory of the human intellect, because the intellect is not infallible in its conclusions.

--Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: The Will of God

Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.

--St. Thomas More

QUOTATION: Christ Made Himself Weak

But these rash and ungrateful men are the very men whom the Son of God has come to save, by making himself man, and by taking on himself the chastisement deserved by them, in order to obtain pardon for them. And then, seeing that man from the wounds inflicted by sin continued very weak and powerless to resist the strength of his enemies, what did he do? From strong and almighty as he was, he became weak, and assumed to himself the bodily infirmities of man, in order to procure for man by His merits the strength of soul requisite to subdue the attacks of the flesh and of hell. And so, behold him made a little child, in need of milk to sustain his life, and so feeble that he cannot feed himself, that he cannot move himself.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ

QUOTATION: Liberal Protestantism

One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into poetry and therapy, to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed has not done so, and that religion is our own sweet invention.

--Flannery O’Connor, Letter to Alfred Corn, 1962.

QUOTATION: Neighbour

Once a man ceases to be of service to his neighbor, he begins to be a burden to him; it is only a step from refusing to live with others to refusing to live for others.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul, 1949

QUOTATION: Children

Please, let’s not unload our faults on children. Children are never a mistake.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: The Last Supper

It is important to note that the Last Supper sees itself as making a covenant: it is the prolongation of the Sinai covenant, which is not abrogated, but renewed.

--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Many Religions-- One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World, 1998

QUOTATION: When You Can't Pray

When we cannot pray-- let us give that inability to Him... Let Him pray in us to the Father. Let us ask Him to pray in us, for no one knows the Father better than He. No one can pray better than Jesus. 

--Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Where There is Love, There is God, Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., Ed

QUOTATION: Heretics

Heretics bring sentence upon themselves since they by their own choice withdraw from the Church, a withdrawal which, since they are aware of it, constitutes damnation. Between heresy and schism there is this difference: that heresy involves perverse doctrine, while schism separates one from the Church on account of disagreement with the bishop. Nevertheless, there is no schism which does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church.

--St. Jerome, Commentary on Titus 3:10–11, c. 386

QUOTATION: The Worldly Do Not Understand the Cross

Wise and honest people living in this world, you do not understand the mysterious language of the Cross. You are too fond of sensual pleasures and you seek your comforts too much. You have too much regard for the things of this world and you are too afraid to be held up to scorn or looked down upon. In short, you are too opposed to the Cross of Jesus. True, you speak well of the Cross in general, but not of the one that comes your way. You shun this as much as you can or else you drag it along reluctantly, grumbling, impatient and protesting. I seem to see in you the oxen that drew the Ark of the Covenant against their will, bellowing as they went, unaware that what they were drawing contained the most precious treasure upon earth.

--St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom

QUOTATION: Catholic Schools

Like our churches, our schools must always minister to the souls of the faithful. If they do not, they fall into decay and become the workshops of evil. History shows us that when schools grow away from the Church, they grow closer to the prisons.

--Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, A Sermon in Szentgotthard, cited in Memoirs, 1974

QUOTATION: The Signs of Predestination

Theologians enumerate eight signs of predestination.

First, a good life;

secondly, the testimony of a good conscience;

thirdly, patience in adversities for love of God;

fourthly, relish for the light and the word of God;

fifthly, mercy toward those who suffer;

sixthly, love of enemies;

seventhly, humility;

eighthly, special devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

--Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

QUOTATION: Silence

Silence has another advantage. It shows that man belongs to a better world. If a man lives in Germany and yet does not speak German, we naturally conclude that he is not a German. So too, we rightly conclude that a man who does not give himself up to worldly conversation is not of the world, although he lives therein.

--St. Bonaventure, Holiness of Life

QUOTATION: Baptism

As soon as a man is baptized, his name is inscribed in the Book of Life. He has his place in heaven, he is an heir of glory,he has the right of heritage with Jesus Christ and in Him.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Salvation at the Moment of Death

When any one is passing to the other life, all the hopes that are conceived of his salvation depend on the judgment formed as to whether he has died in resignation or not. If, after having, during life, welcomed to your embrace all things that have come from God, you in like manner embrace death also in order to accomplish his divine will, you will certainly secure your salvation and die the death of a saint.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Way of Salvation and Perfection

QUOTATION: Modern Man

The modern man is no longer a unity, but a confused bundle of complexes and nerves. He is so dissociated, so alienated from himself that he sees himself less as a personality than as a battlefield where a civil war rages between a thousand and one conflicting loyalties. There is no single overall purpose in his life. His soul is comparable to a menagerie in which a number of beasts, each seeking its own prey, turn one upon the other. Or he may be likened to a radio that is tuned in to several stations; instead of getting any one clearly, it receives only an annoying static.

--Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul, 1949

QUOTATION: Business

Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good.

--Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 129

QUOTATION: Man the Image of God

When we say that man is the image of God, it means that he is a being designed for relationship; it means that, in and through all his relationships, he seeks that relation which is the ground of his existence.

--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Many Religions-- One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World, 1998

QUOTATION: Evil

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.

-- Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: Pastors Must Be Vigilant

A lack of vigilance — as we know — makes the Pastor tepid; it makes him absentminded, forgetful and even impatient. It tantalizes him with the prospect of a career, the enticement of money and with compromises with a mundane spirit; it makes him lazy, turning him into an official, a state functionary concerned with himself, with organization and structures, rather than with the true good of the People of God. Then one runs the risk of denying the Lord as did the Apostle Peter, even if he formally presents him and speaks in his name; one obscures the holiness of the hierarchical Mother Church making her less fruitful.

--Pope Francis, Homily at the Profession of Faith with the Bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference, May 23, 2013

QUOTATION: God

God does not fit in an occupied heart.

--St. John of the Cross

QUOTATION: Peace

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

--Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta