Quote for the Night

[Therese]

'Good works are of no use unless we also bear the cross as well, nor do sufferings profit us unless we lead a Christian life.'

Bl. John of Avila

[Shin]

'O what then! I merit not in caring for my husband and my child, who are God's creatures? No, for thou dost merit naught, if thou intend not above all the pleasing of God. If thy intention be towards God so that thou dost that which thou doest to his praise and glory, then everything doth profit thee. And hence thou mayest ever merit if thou thyself care for thy household, and thy children, and thy house; having above all intention towards God and that what thou dost may be to his honour and glory, straightway thou dost merit.'

St. Bernardine of Siena

[Therese]

'In Baptism He instills the virtues of faith, hope and charity, and with these other virtues, by which the creature is to co-operate and exert itself toward the pursuit of Good, not only preserving within itself those received in the sacraments, but acquiring others by its own merits and exertions.  This will be the greatest happiness and blessedness of men, that they correspond to the love, which the Creator and Redeemer shows them, adorning their soul and, by the infused habits, familiarizing themselves with the virtuous exercise of their own will.  But the failure to correspond to those inestimable benefits brings on their greatest misfortune, because in this disloyalty consists the first great victory of the demon over man.'

Our Lady to Ven. Mary of Agreda, City of God, Vol. I, p. 375
(Bk. II, #486)

[Therese]

'The best advice that I can give you is this. Church traditions -- especially when they do not run counter to the Faith -- are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down.'

St. Jerome, Epistulae, lxxi.6

[Shin]

'Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him.'

1 John 2:15

[Therese]

If anyone should say that the true Church is not one body in itself, but consists of varied and diverse societies of Christian name, and is spread out among them, or that various societies disagreeing among themselves in profession of faith and separated by communion, constitute, as members or parts, the one and universal Church of Christ, let him be anathema.

- Vatican Council (1870), Canon IV

[Shin]

'See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God beside Me: I will kill and I will make to live: I will strike and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of My Hand.'

Deuteronomy 32:39

[Shin]

'The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary to one another.

And they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh, with its vices and concupiscences.'

Galatians 5:17,24

[Therese]

Latinis potius literis erudiantur, quam ut facultas concedatur, adhibendi in Missae celebratione vulgarem linguam [Let them rather learn Latin letters, than that the faculty be conceded of using the vulgar tongue in the celebration of Mass].

- Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758), De Missa Sacrificio, 1.2, c. 2. n. 14

[Therese]

Men will surrender to the spirit of the age. They will say that if they had lived in our day, faith would be simple and easy. But in their day, they will say, things are complex; the Church must be brought up to date and made meaningful to the day's problems.

- Saint Anthony (ca. 251-356)

[Therese]

Justice forbids and reason itself forbids that the State should be godless, or that it should adopt a line of action which would end in godlessness -- namely, to treat the various religions (as they call them) alike, and to bestlow upon them promiscuously equal rights and privileges.... Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men in this are being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding greater ills.... But to judge aright, we must acknowledge that the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further it is from perfection.

- Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum, June 1888

[Therese]

To use the words of the fathers of the Council of Trent, it is certain that the Church "was instructed by Jesus Christ and His Apostles and that all truth was daily taught by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost." Therefore, it is obviously absurd and injurious to propose a certain "restoration and regeneration" for her as though necessary for her safety and growth, as if she could be considered subject to defect or obscuration or other misfortune. Indeed these authors of novelties consider that a "foundation may be laid of a new human institution," and what St. Cyprian detested may come to pass, that what was a divine thing "may become a human church."

- Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846), Mirari Vos, "On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism," August 15, 1832

[Therese]

The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it.

- St. John Fisher, 16th-century English bishop

[Shin]

'To be removed from things of the senses is to contemplate things of the spirit.'

St. John Climacus

[Shin]

'We do not acquire virtue by taking our ease and seeking our comfort.'

St. Jean Baptiste de la Salle

[Therese]

'We do not acquire virtue by taking our ease and seeking our comfort.'

St. Jean Baptiste de la Salle

Very true, but when we are very sick it would be most imprudent not to attend to the needs of our body.