QUOTATION: Overcoming Anxiety

To conquer anxiety does not mean eliminating our desires but, rather arranging them in a hierarchy, as our Lord reminded us when he said that life is more than the raiment. This pyramid of values places things at the bottom—and things including everything material in the universe, from a star that inspires a poet to wheat used for the baker’s bread. Above things comes man, and the peak of the pyramid is God. A religious man orders his life by the pattern of the pyramid. He overcomes anxiety by making all material things subject to the human, by disciplining the body until it is subject to the spirit, and by submitting the whole personality to God.

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

QUOTATION: Compartmentalizing Religion

People who separate religion from the rest of life are trying to get rid of religion altogether; for they do not want it to interfere with the way they live.

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

QUOTATION: Uncertainty

Anyone who makes up his mind to evade the uncertainty of belief will have to experience the uncertainty of unbelief, which can never finally eliminate for certain the possibility that belief after all may be the truth. It is not until belief is rejected that its unrejectability becomes evident.

--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, 1968

QUOTATION: Christ is Alive

If I am to answer the question, ‘How would Christ solve modern problems if He were on earth today’, I must answer it plainly; and for those of my faith there is only one answer. Christ is on earth today; alive on a thousand altars; and He does solve people’s problems exactly as He did when He was on earth in the more ordinary sense. That is, He solves the problems of the limited number of people who choose of their own free will to listen to Him.

--G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Saying Sorry

The best way of saying sorry is to do the opposite action.

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

QUOTATION: The Church and Her Authority

When we speak of the Church—allow me this parenthesis—let us think of what she truly is. Let us not have an attenuated conception of her; let us not picture to ourselves a mere spiritual administration. Let us remember that she is herself a mystery, that she is the Mystical Body of Christ, a living person, at once divine and human, whose head is Christ and all of whose members the Holy Ghost joins together, the great Contemplative who aspires to beget all men unto eternal life, and all of whose movements—so far as the Church herself is concerned (whatever the human frailty of individuals may be)—proceed from divine wisdom and the most pure gifts of grace. We shall not then bargain over the terms of our allegiance, we shall not follow her like peevish children who have to be dragged along; we shall understand that her doctrinal authority is not limited to defining solemnly what one cannot deny without being a heretic, but extends, on the contrary, according to all the degrees and all the nuances that what one calls the ordinary magisterium of the Church admits of in the tone of its voice and the authority of its affirmations, to all that concerns the integrity of faith in souls.

--Jacques Maritain, St. Thomas Aquinas, 1958

QUOTATION: Immortality

The soul that loves God dies not. She simply reaches the end of her journey, and the barriers fall. She only changes her condition. Her love of suffering becomes a love of beatitude. Her body itself does but rest in the earth, therein preparing for its renewal in glory. Plants and animals die, but man dies not, he only changes his state. The earth will not retain the dust of his bones. It will restore all for the glorious resurrection, and the whole man will live again forever.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Accidental Beatitude in Heaven

We have spoken of essential beatitude, which consists in the immediate vision of God and in the love which flows from this vision. But the Lord, so rich in mercy for His elect, adds to essential beatitude a joy in created good, a joy which corresponds to their aspirations. This is what we call accidental beatitude.

This accidental beatitude is found in the society of friends: in general joy at the good deeds done on earth: in the special recompense given to certain classes, the halo of virgins, for example, of doctors, and of martyrs: in the resurrection and in the qualities of the glorious body.

Accidental Beatitude in the Soul

In regard to those whom they have known and loved on earth, the saints receive, besides the beatific vision in Verbo, also new knowledge extra Verbum. It is an accidental joy to learn, for example, of the spiritual progress, of their friends on earth, to see them entering heaven. This knowledge extra Verbum, is inferior to the beatific vision. Hence some call it the evening vision, contrasted with the morning vision which sees created things in God.

Further, each soul is happy to be honored by God, by the friends of God, especially by those who shine by wisdom. Each has a special joy in seeing his own good recognized and appreciated, good which he accomplished on earth in the midst of great difficulties.

Special recompense will be given for victories gained against the flesh, the world, and the devil: the halo of virgins, for victory against the concupiscence of the flesh: the halo of the martyrs for victory over persecutors: the halo of doctors for victory over ignorance, errors, infidelity, heresy, over the spirit of division and negation. This halo belongs, not only to those who have publicly taught sacred science, by word or by pen, but also to those who have taught in private fashion when occasion presented itself. "They that instruct many to justice shall shine as stars for all eternity." This halo belongs, first to the spirit, then, after the resurrection, to the body, just as the essential glory of the soul is reflected in the body raised from the dead.

--Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

QUOTATION: Dead to the World

It is a sign that a soul is dead to the world when a soul is despised by the world.

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: False Conscience

The devil, our cruel enemy, takes pleasure in aiding us to form false conscience and in troubling our peace of soul; he sometimes succeeds in making us believe that there is sin in everything, in order that, thus deluded, we may deprive ourselves of the happiness of participating in the Eucharistic Banquet, and so lose the precious graces which Our Lord distributes to souls that receive Him worthily. Take care not to become the sport of the spirit of darkness.

--St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, Conferences and Instructions

QUOTATION: The Church is a Love Story

We, the women and men of the Church, we are in the middle of a love story: each of us is a link in this chain of love. And if we do not understand this, we have understood nothing of what the Church is.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Pulled in Two Directions

In every human being, there is double law of gravitation, one pulling him to the earth, where he has his time of trial, and the other pulling him to God, where he has his happiness. The anxiety underlying all modern man’s anxieties arises from his trying to be himself without God or from his trying to get beyond himself without God.

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

QUOTATION: The Holy Spirit

Fire has four natures: it burns, it cleanses, it warms, it gives light. Similarly the Holy Spirit burns away sins, cleanses hearts, shakes off sloth and enlightens ignorance. Fire is by nature incorporeal and invisible, but when it takes on a bodily form it appears in various colours, according to the materials in which it is burning. In the same way, the Holy Spirit cannot be seen except through the creatures in which he operates.

--St. Anthony of Padua

QUOTATION: The Doubt of a Non-Believer

Just at the believer is choked by the salt water of doubt constantly washed into his mouth by the ocean of uncertainty, so the non-believer is troubled by doubts about his unbelief, about the real totality of the world he has made up his mind to explain as a self-contained whole. He can be never be absolutely certain of the autonomy of what he has seen and interpreted as a whole; he remains threatened by the question of whether belief is not after all the reality it claims to be.

--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, 1968

QUOTATION: Judgement Day

In the eyes of the just God, before his judgment, those who share in the sufferings of Christ become worthy of this kingdom.

--Pope St. John Paul II

QUOTATION: Connect Your Behaviour to Jesus

When I am unkind, uncharitable-- it's that slap I give to Jesus; it's a humiliation to God. That was the greatest suffering for Jesus to accept-- that slap. Connect His Cross with the cross you wear. Today did I wipe the blood from the face of Jesus?

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

QUOTATION: The Wisdom of the World

The wisdom of the world is that of which it is said, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise (1 Cor. 1:19; cf. Is. 29:14), i.e. those whom the world calls wise." "The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy of God" (Rom. 8:7), and does not come from above. It is earthly, devilish and carnal (Jas. 3:15). This worldly wisdom consists in an exact conformity to the maxims and fashions of the world; a continual inclination towards greatness and esteem; and a subtle and endless pursuit of pleasure and self-interest, not in an uncouth and blatant way by scandalous sin, but in an astute, discreet, and deceitful way. Otherwise the world would no longer label it wisdom but pure licentiousness.

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

QUOTATION: Rule for Everyday Life

Here is a rule for everyday life: Do not do anything which you cannot offer to God.

--St. Jean Vianney, the Cure of Ars.

QUOTATION: Sins of Speech

A loose and glib tongue easily becomes the vehicle of blasphemy and murmuring. The tongue that wags will be guilty of perjury, lying and detraction. The sin of flattery is easy to it. So too, cursing, abusive language, quarrelsome words, and words which mockingly contemn virtue and entice to evil deeds. Scandalous gossip, vain boasting, the divulging of secrets, idle threats, rash promises, frequent and silly chattering and scurrilous conversation : all these sins come lightly, smoothly, and easily from an unguarded tongue.

--St. Bonaventure, Holiness of Life

QUOTATION: True God and True Man

Other children, while remaining in the womb of their mothers, do not suffer, because they are only in their natural place; and if they do suffer in some slight degree, at least they are unconscious of what they feel, since they are deprived of understanding; but Jesus, while an infant, endures for nine months the darkness of that prison, endures the pain of not being able to move, and is perfectly alive to what he endures. It is for this reason that Jeremias said, A woman shall compass a man. He foretold that a woman, which was Mary, should bear enclosed in her womb, not a child indeed, but a man ; a child truly as to age ; but a perfect man as to the use of reason, since Jesus Christ was full of wisdom from the first instance in his life : whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Whence St. Bernard said,"Jesus was a man while not yet as born, but in wisdom, not in age." And St. Augustine, "The unspeakably Wise was in his wisdom a speechless Infant."

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

QUOTATION: Idolatry

Those who believe more in their own pleasures than in the precepts of God, worship themselves as gods.

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: Christianity

The Christian truth is attractive and persuasive because it responds to humanity's deepest needs.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Envy

There is rarely a disrupted, frustrated soul, critical and envious of his neighbor, who is not at the same time an anti-religious man.

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

QUOTATION: The God of the Bible

The God of the Bible is a God in relationship; and to that extent, in the essence of his identity, he is opposed to the self-enclosed God of philosophy.

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

QUOTATION: National Sin

Men call themselves the nation when they sin in a body, and think that the nation, being a name, has nothing to answer for, and may do what it will; that its acts are only the "course of events," and necessary, as the motion of the earth. They do very rash acts, without the fear of God before their eyes, making large and bold changes (whether allowably or not, is not here the question; their plain fault being that they do not ask themselves whether or not it is allowable,-the question does not enter their minds); I say they make large changes,-they endanger God's holy religion,-they encourage scoffers and deceivers. Then, perhaps, they see they have gone too far, and they change their course; perhaps try to reverse what they have done. Now the thought never crosses them that any one has any thing to repent of; or, if they are determined to put the blame on the nation, that the nation has any thing to repent of. Accordingly, persons who hail the return of any portion of the nation to a sounder state of mind, never hint or seem to feel that a national sin has been committed, that Almighty God has books in which are set down the events of every year and day, books which will be opened at the Day of Judgment, and men judged out of them.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "Chastisement and Mercy, " Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol.4

QUOTATION: Knowledge of God

A virtuous man may be ignorant, but ignorance is not a virtue. It would be a strange God who could be loved better by being known less. Love of God is immeasurably more important than knowledge of God; but if a man loves God knowing a little about Him, he should love God more from knowing more about Him: for every new thing known about God is a new reason for loving Him.

--Frank Sheed, Theology and Sanity, 1947

QUOTATION: Paradise

Paradise is God possessed, the term of God's love for us. Love longs to give itself and to share all that it has and all that it is. God, who is infinite love, does not desire to be happy alone. He puts us in Paradise, in order to, give Himself to us just as He is, in all His perfections, in His infinite happiness.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Love

The Saints tell us that
Faith is love that believes.
Hope is love that expects.
Adoration is love that worships.
Prayer is love that petitions.
Mercy is love that pardons.
Charity is love that sacrifices itself.
Mortification, martyrdom, is love that immolates itself.

-- St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, Conferences and Instructions

QUOTATION: The Mass

The Mass is very long and tiresome unless one loves God.

-G.K. Chesterton

QUOTATION: Sins

Our sins, then, do not prevent us from becoming saints; God offers us readily every assistance if we only desire it and ask it. What more remains? It remains for us to give ourselves entirely to God, and to devote to his love at least the remainder of our days in this life.

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