QUOTATION: Hope

Hope is practiced through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God’s mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 39

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: 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: Act

Act and God will Act. Work and He will work.

--St. Joan of Arc

QUOTATION: The Fourth Degree of Obedience

Another virtue, which may be considered a fourth degree of obedience, is conformity to the divine will in all things, This enables us to accept from the hands of God, with equal submission, honor or ignominy, obscurity or renown, stripes or caresses, health or sickness, life or death; for we look, not at our chastisements, but at Him who inflicts them through love of us. An earthly father loves his child when he corrects him no less than when he caresses him. Does his love bear any comparison to the love of the Heavenly Father? Let us realize, then, that all that comes from His hand is for our welfare, and we shall become so firmly established in submission to His holy will that He may mold us according to His good pleasure, as clay in the hands of the potter.

--Louis de Granada, The Sinner's Guide

QUOTATION: Prophets of Misfortune

In the daily exercise of our apostolic ministry, we are often offended when we learn what certain people are saying, who are filled with religious zeal yet lack correct judgment and level-headedness in their way of seeing things. They see only ruins and calamities in society's present situation. They are used to saying that our day and age has worsened profoundly in comparison with past centuries. They behave as if history, which is the teacher of life, had nothing to teach them and as if at the time of past Councils, everything had been perfect where Christian doctrine, customs and the Church's just freedom were concerned.

It seems to us that we must state our complete disagreement with the prophets of misfortune, who always announce catastrophes as if the world were close to its end.

In the present course of events when society seems to be at a turning point, it is better to acknowledge the mysterious plans of divine Providence which, through the succession of times and the work of human beings and most of the time against all expectations, reach their goal and arrange everything with wisdom for the good of the Church, even the events that are in opposition to it.

--Pope John XXIII

QUOTATION: Suffering's Silver Lining

Though the divine Providence has left in man, along with the grace of its mercy, several striking marks of its severity, such as, for example, the necessity of death, the pains of sickness, the obligation of labour, the rebellion of sensuality, yet celestial clemency, rising above these, takes pleasure in turning every misery to the greater advantage of those who love it, making patience spring up from labour, contempt of the world from the necessity of death, and a thousand victories from conscupiscence; and, as the rainbow touching the thorny apalathus renders it more odourous than the lily, so the redemption of Our Lord touching our miseries, renders them more useful and more amiable than original innocence would ever have been.

--St. Francis de Sales, Consoling Thoughts

QUOTATION: Accepting God's Providence

If you embrace all things in this life as coming from the hands of God, and even embrace death to fulfill His holy will, assuredly you will die a saint.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori

QUOTATION: Divine Providence

Live always in the certainty that whatever happens to you is the result of divine Providence; because nothing hard or laborious falls to your lot without the Lord permitting it.

--Venerable Louis de Blois

QUOTATION: Trust in Divine Providence

Cast yourself into the arms of God and be very sure that if He wants anything of you, He will fit you for the work and give you strength.

-- St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Deceit in Managing One's Affairs

Whoever manages his affairs with artifices and subterfuges offends the providence of God and renders himself unworthy of his parental care.

--St. Vincent de Paul

QUOTATION: Divine Providence

Whoever casts himself into the arms of God's providence and allows himself to be ruled, is borne to Heaven in a chariot with all his crosses, so that he scarcely feels their weight. He who acts otherwise goes on foot, dragging them with labor and weariness.

--St. Bernard of Clairvaux