Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'It is a great source of joy for Satan to see a soul rushing on heedlessly and deaf to the warnings which would restrain it; for as much as its pretensions are exaggerated, so great will be its fall.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'Behold, the hour cometh, and it is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and me you shall leave alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.'

John 16:32

[Shin]

'I have never gone out to mingle with the world without losing something of myself.'

St. Albert the Great

[Shin]

'There are some who ignorantly deny Him, but rather were denied by Him, being advocates of death rather than of the truth. These are they whom neither the prophecies nor the law of Moses persuaded, nor the gospel even until now, nor our own individual sufferings.'

St. Ignatius of Antioch

[Shin]

'"But I say to you," says the Lord, "love your enemies. . . do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you" (Matt. 5:44). Why did He command this? To free you from hatred, irritation, anger and rancor, and to make you worthy of the supreme gift of perfect love. And you cannot attain such love if you do not imitate God and love all men equally. For God loves all men equally and wishes them "to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4).'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'As all our wickedness consists in turning away from our Creator, so all our goodness consists in uniting ourselves with Him.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'The Church teaches us that mercy belongs to God. Let us implore Him to bestow on us the spirit of mercy and compassion, so that we are filled with it and may never lose it. Only consider how much we ourselves are in need of mercy.'

St. Vincent de Paul

[Shin]

'I abyss myself in His magnificence and His wisdom but when I ponder His goodness, my heart can say nothing - I can only Adore.'

St. Teresa of the Andes

[Shin]

'The fervour of spirituality is usually very great in the beginning, but afterwards, the Lord fingit se longius ire, makes as though He would go farther: in such a case we must stand firm and not be disturbed, because God is then withdrawing His most holy Hand of sweetnesses, to see if we are strong; and then, if we resist and overcome those tribulations and temptations, the sweetnesses and heavenly consolations return.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'The greatness of our love of God must be tested by the desire we have of suffering for His love.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Having sinned secretly, do not try to hide. For "all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we have to give an account" (Heb. 4:13).'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'Temptation is necessary to us to make us realize that we are nothing in ourselves. Saint Augustine tells us that we should thank God as much for the sins from which He has preserved us as for those which He has had the charity to forgive us. If we have the misfortune to fall so often into the snares of the devil, we set ourselves up again too much on the strength of our own resolutions and promises and too little upon the strength of God. This is very true.'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

[Shin]

'I do not know why God inspires me to speak so often of simplicity, unless it be that He seems to me to have such a horror of the contrary. Were I to see in a soul all the other virtues without that of simplicity, were it even favored with all those graces which our Lord bestows on His dearest friends -- all would seem to be but deceit and illusion.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

[Shin]

'If the serpent, the devil, bites someone secretly, he infects that person with the venom of sin. And if the one who has been bitten keeps silence and does not do penance, and does not want to confess his wound. . . then his brother and his master, who have the word [of absolution] that will cure him, cannot very well assist him.'

St. Jerome

[Shin]

'Self-contempt and perfect union with the divine will: these are the main points of the Christian life.'

St. Paul of the Cross

[Shin]

'He who does not understand God's judgments walks on a ridge like a knife-edge and is easily unbalanced by every puff of wind. When praised, he exults; when criticized, he feels bitter. When he feasts, he makes a pig of himself; and when he suffers hardship, he moans and groans. When he understands, he shows off; and when he does not understand, he pretends that he does. When rich, he is boastful; and when in poverty, he plays the hypocrite. Gorged, he grows brazen; and when he fasts, he becomes arrogant. He quarrels with those who reprove him; and those who forgive him he regards as fools.'

St. Mark the Ascetic