'It is clear therefore that nothing is greater, and nothing better than to enter into the inner secret place of the mind always and in every tribulation and occurrence, and there to call upon the Lord Jesus Christ himself, our helper in temptations and tribulations, and to humble ourselves there by confession of sin, and praise God and Father himself, the giver of correction and the giver of consolation. Above all one should accept everything, in general and individually, in oneself or in others, agreeable or disagreeable, with a prompt and confident spirit, as coming from the hand of his infallible Providence or the order he has arranged. '

St. Albert the Great

'Always give the preference to actions which appear to you the most agreeable to God, and most contrary to self-love.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

'We ought to pray God importunately to increase in us every day the light and heat of his goodness.'

St. Philip Neri

'If you wish to acquire the gift of prayer, you must humbly persevere in mortifying your senses. . . I especially advise you to be very faithful to holy recollection, mortifying your eyes, your tongue and your ears, but cutting off all vain curiosity, which is often the cause of the distractions which beset you in your [spiritual] exercises.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

'O you who are cold and dead, go to the fount of life!'

St. Bernardine of Siena

'. . . ofttimes a single word that thou hearest may be the beginning of thy salvation.'

St. Bernardine of Siena

'. . . faith has for its object the truths revealed by God or the Church, and it is nothing else but an adhesion of our understanding to these truths which it finds both beautiful and good. Consequently, it comes to believe them, and the will comes to love them.'

St. Francis de Sales

'If a man has sinned and denies it, saying, "I have not sinned," do not reprimand him or that will discourage him. But say to him, "Do not lose heart, brother, but be on guard in the future." and you will stir his soul to repentance.'

St. Poemen

I truly appreciate the St. Cloud and cloud posts eschator.

'Have great diffidence of yourself. "Without Me," your Saviour tells you, "you can do nothing." (John xv. 5.) And the apostle St. James: "Every perfect gift is from above." (James i. 17)'

St. Paul of the Cross

'The greater the charity of the saints, in their heavenly home, the more they intercede for those who are still on their journey and the more they can help them by their prayers; the more they are united with God, the more effective those prayers are. This is in accordance with divine order, which makes higher things react upon lower things, like the brightness of the sun filling the atmosphere.'

St. Thomas Aquinas

'You have been commanded to mortify the acts of the body (cf. Col. 3:5) so that when the soul has been made dead to pleasure you may bring it back to life through your ascetic labors.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

'Use the senses and sense objects as a means to spiritual contemplation but, on the contrary, do not use what provokes the desire of the flesh as food for the senses.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

It is good to let everything draw the mind to God, and so to use everything to its true purpose. Even dry numbers have their associations.

One God, two natures to Jesus Christ, God and Man, three persons of the Holy Trinity, Four Last Things. . .

'The soul has followed Moses and the cloud, both of these serving as guides for those who would advance in virtue; Moses here represents the commandments of the Law; and the cloud that leads the way, its spiritual meaning. The soul has been purified by crossing the Sea; it has removed from itself and destroyed the enemy army. It has tasted of the waters of Marah, that is, of life deprived of all sinful pleasure; and this at first had seemed bitter and unpleasant to the taste but offered a sensation of sweetness to those who accepted the wood. Next it enjoyed the beauty of the palm trees of the gospel and the springs; it filled itself with the living water, that is, the rock. It took within itself the bread of heaven. It overwhelmed the foreign host - a victory due to the extended arms of the Lawgiver, which thus foreshadowed the mystery of the Cross.

Only then can the soul go on to the contemplation of transcendent Being.'

St. Gregory of Nyssa

It surely is a grandly colorful rose!