QUOTATION: Self-Knowledge

As the soul comes to know herself she also knows God better, for she sees how good he has been to her. In the gentle mirror of God she sees her own dignity: that through no merit of hers but by his creation she is the image of God. And in the mirror of God’s goodness she sees as well her own unworthiness, the work of her own sin. For just as you can better see the blemish on your face when you look at yourself in a mirror, so that soul who in true self-knowledge rises up with desire to look at herself in the gentle mirror of God with the eye of understanding sees all the more clearly her own defects because of the purity she sees in him.

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

QUOTATION: Aiming for Heaven

The Gospel then has come to us, not merely to make us good subjects, good citizens, good members of society, but to make us members of the New Jerusalem, and "fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God." Certainly no one is a true Christian who is not a good subject and member of society; but neither is he a true Christian if he is nothing more than this. If he is not aiming at something beyond the power of the natural man, he is not really a Christian, or one of the elect.

--Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, “The Visible Church for the Sake of the Elect”, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 4.

QUOTATION: Fight Your Spiritual Weaknesses

Fight against that weakness which makes you lazy and careless in your spiritual life. Remember that it might well be the beginning of lukewarmness... and, in the words of the Scripture, God will vomit the lukewarm out of his mouth.

--St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, 325

QUOTATION: Love of God

But he who would love God exceedingly in heaven must first love him very much on earth. According to the degree of love which we bear towards God when we finish the journey of life, will be the degree of love with which we shall continue to love God for all eternity.

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

QUOTATION: Individual Religion

There is a tremendous egotism and conceit in those popular articles and lectures entitled “My Idea of Religion” or “My Idea of God.” An individual religion can be as misleading and uninformed as an individual astronomy or an individual mathematics.

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

QUOTATION: How to Protect Chastity

Humility is the safeguard of chastity. In the matter of purity, there is no greater danger than not fearing danger.

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Nominalism

If, as the nominalist says, 'all chairs are different,' how can he call them all 'chairs'?

--G. K. Chesterton.

QUOTATION: On Electronic Media

If you young people become attached the computer, and become a slave to the computer, you lose your freedom. And if you look at dirty content on the computer, you lose your dignity. Watch TV and use the computer, but for the good things, the big things, the things that make us grow.

--Pope Francis, Address to youth, Sarajevo, June 6, 2015.

QUOTATION: Truth

If Platonism provides an idea of the truth, Christian belief offers truth as a way, and only by becoming a way has it become man's truth. Truth as mere perception, as mere idea, remains bereft of force; it only a man's truth as a way that makes a claim upon him, that he can and must tread.

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

QUOTATION: Our Fatherland

Christ the Lord is the fatherland toward which we are traveling, Christ the man is the way by which we are to travel.

--St. Augustine, Sermon 123

QUOTATION: Oppression of the Church

For the Church is afflicted and pressed, not only by the Jews, but also by the Gentiles. It is also afflicted by those who are called Christians, but are not such in reality.

--St. Hippolytus, c. 205 AD

QUOTATION: Unwanted

No one has been more unwanted than Jesus himself.

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

QUOTATION: Hell

Concerning the inquiry whether hell is at or near the centre of the earth, my opinion is that nothing should be rashly asserted, not least because Augustine reckoned that nobody knows where hell is. The lower regions can mean whatever is meant by the term “inferior”. . . For myself I do not believe that man can know the position of hell.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Declaratio xxxvi Quaestionum ad Lectorem Venetum, 24, 25.

QUOTATION: Poor Souls Will Reciprocate

We can aid the poor souls, not only by offering prayers, but by other acts of virtue: by almsgiving, by accepting a cross. Let us remember particularly the souls most abandoned, who are sometimes the most holy.

God is pleased to reward our least service. And these souls, too, will not fail to aid us by their own gratitude in heaven. Even before their deliverance they pray for all benefactors. They have charity, which indeed excludes no one but which imposes on them a special duty toward those friends. Their prayers are efficacious even if they do not know in detail our condition, just as our prayers for them are efficacious though we do not know their condition.

 --Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

QUOTATION: Fear

The only ones who are afraid are those who think they are alone, who trust in themselves and have no loving charity. They are afraid of every little thing because they are alone, deprived of me. For it is I who give complete security to the soul who possesses me in love.

--God to St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

QUOTATION: Devotion to the Blessed Mother

Hapless are they who neglect Mary under pretext of the honor to be paid to Jesus Christ! As if the Child could be found elsewhere than with the Mother!

--Pope St. Pius X

QUOTATION: Satan's Temptation of Christ

The first temptation of Satan on the Mount was to try to induce Our Lord to give up the salvation of souls and to concentrate upon social salvation by turning stones into bread—on the false assumption that it was hungry stomachs and not corrupted hearts that made an unhappy civilization.

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

QUOTATION: The Right Attitude

Helping a person in need is good in itself. But the degree of goodness is hugely affected by the attitude with which it is done. If you show resentment because you are helping the person out of a reluctant sense of duty, then the person may recieve your help but may feel awkward and embarrassed. This is because he will feel beholden to you. If,on the other hand, you help the person in a spirit of joy, then the help will be received joyfully. The person will feel neither demeaned nor humiliated by your help, but rather will feel glad to have caused you pleasure by receiving your help. And joy is the appropriate attitude with which to help others because acts of generosity are a source of blessing to the giver as well as the receiver.

--St. John Chrysostom

QUOTATION: Crosses

Crosses release us from this world, and by doing so, bind us to God.

--Charles de Foucauld

QUOTATION: Our Purpose in Life

Do not think that you live in this world to have fun, to become rich, to eat, drink and sleep. The end for which you were created in the first place is infinitely more noble and sublime: And it is this: To Love and Serve God in this life. And that way save your soul.

--St. John Bosco

QUOTATION: The Greatest Deception

The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibility.

--St. John Paul II, Homily, World Youth Day, Toronto, July 28, 2002

QUOTATION: Doctrines

Originally there was no such thing as a series of doctrinal propositions that could be enumerated one after the other and entered in a book as a well-defined body of dogmas. Such a notion, which today may be difficult to resist, would have to be described as a misconception of the nature of the Christian assent to the God revealed in Christ.

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

QUOTATION: If We Can't Respect People, We Can't Respect the Environment

Neglecting to monitor the harm done to nature and the environmental impact of our decisions is only the most striking sign of a disregard for the message contained in the structures of nature itself. When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry of nature itself; everything is connected. Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble, for “instead of carrying out his role as a cooperator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature”.

--Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 117

QUOTATION: Faults

Frequently we think we are pleasing others by our presence and we begin rather to displease them by the faults they find in us.

--Thomas à Kempis.

QUOTATION: Learning Humility

How will you learn humility? Not by reading plenty of books, or by listening to many words, but by accepting humiliations.

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

QUOTATION: New Ideas are Simply Old Mistakes.

The other day a well-known writer, otherwise well-informed, said that the Catholic Church is always the enemy of new ideas. It probably did not occur to him that his own remark was not exactly in the nature of a new idea. It is one of the notions that Catholics have to be continually refuting, because it is such a very old idea... Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes. The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making these old mistakes; from making them over and over again forever, as people always do if they are left to themselves.

--G.K. Chesterton, “Why I Am a Catholic”

QUOTATION: Scepticism

A Catholic is kept from scepticism, not by any external prohibition, but by admiration, trust, and love.

--Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: Perfection

It is evident that one who would merely aim at avoiding mortal sin would not be living according to the standard of moral conduct outlined in the Gospel. Our Lord proposes to us as the ideal of holiness the very perfection of Our Heavenly Father: "Be ye therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect." Hence, all having God for their Father must approach this divine perfection - which evidently cannot be accomplished without progress.

--St. Teresa of Avila

QUOTATION: Protesting Too Much

Stop slandering the church by protesting against the conduct of those whom the church herself condemns.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Salvation

Our Lord finds it necessary to warn us not to fear because there are three false fears that keep us away from God: 1) We want to be saved, but not from our sins. 2) We want to be saved, but not at too great a cost. 3) We want to be saved in our way, not his.

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

QUOTATION: Self-Reflection

We can see neither our own dignity nor the defects which spoil the beauty of our soul, unless we look at ourselves in the peaceful sea of God’s being in which we are imaged.

--St. Catherine of Siena, Letter 226 to Blessed Raymond of Capua