Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'Whoever from deep within her noble and zealous heart wishes to take up the cross through Jesus Christ our savior who died on the field of battle in order to give us life, let her first take up the arms necessary for such battles and especially those which are treated next in order: first is diligence; second, distrust of self; third, confidence in God; fourth, memory of his passion; fifth, memory of one's own death, sixth, memory of the glory of God; seventh and last, the authority of Holy Scripture as it gives the example of Christ Jesus in the desert.'

St. Catherine of Bologna

[Shin]

'Do you find it an oppressive burden to denounce those who commit these sins? It is an oppressive burden to remain silent. For this silence makes you an enemy to God and brings destruction both to you who conceal such sinners and to those whose sins go unrevealed. How much better it is to become hateful to our fellow servants for saving them to provoke God's anger against yourselves. Even if your fellow servant be vexed with you now, he will not be able to harm you but will be grateful later on for his cure. But if you seek to win your fellow servant's favor, if you remain silent and hurt him by concealing his sin, God will exact from you the ultimate penalty.'

St. John Chrysostom

[Shin]

'A man ought never to think he has done any good, or rest contented with any degree of perfection he may have attained, because Christ has given us the type of our perfection, in putting before us the perfection of the Eternal Father. Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'There is nothing more displeasing to God, than our being inflated with self-esteem.'

St. Philip Neri

[Therese]

"If I have spoken evil give testimony of the evil: but if well, why strikest thou me?"
--St. John, xviii



"They are of the world: therefore of the world they speak, and the world heareth them."
--1 John, iv



"We are of God.  He that knoweth God heareth us: he that is not of God heareth us not.  And everyone that loveth, is born of God and knoweth God.
--Ibid.

[Shin]

'He who desires nothing but God is rich and happy.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'O how sweet and gentle is the divine discourse of Christ Jesus in the soul of her who is truly enflamed by love of him!'

St. Catherine of Bologna

[Shin]

'See, my children, if we really wish to be saved we must determine, once for all, to labor in earnest for our salvation; our soul is like a garden in which the weeds are ever ready to choke the good plants and flowers that have been sown in it. If the gardener who has charge of this garden neglects it, if he is not continually using the spade and the hoe, the flowers and plants will soon disappear. Thus, my children, do the virtues with which God has been pleased to adorn our soul disappear under our vices if we neglect to cultivate them. As a vigilant gardener labours from morning till night to destroy the weeds in his garden, and to ornament it with flowers, so let us labor every day to uproot the vices of our soul and to adorn it with virtues. See, my children, a gardener never lets the weeds take root, because he knows that then he would never be able to destroy them. Neither let us allow our vices to take root, or we shall not be able to conquer them.

One day, an anchorite being in a forest with a companion, showed him four cypresses to be pulled up one after the other; the young man, who did not very well know why he told him to do this, took hold of the first tree, which was quite small, and pulled it up with one hand without trouble; the second, which was a little bigger and had some roots, made him pull harder, but yet he pulled it up with one hand; the third, being still bigger, offered so much resistance, that he was obliged to take both hands and to use all his strength; the fourth, which was grown into a tree, had such deep roots, that he exhausted himself in vain efforts. The saint then said to him, "With a little vigilance and mortification, we succeed in repressing our passions, and we triumph over them when they are only springing up; but when they have taken deep root, nothing is more difficult; the thing is even impossible without a miracle."

Let us not reckon on a miracle of Providence, my children; let us not put off till the end of our life the care that we ought daily to take of our soul; let us labor while there is yet time. . .'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

[Shin]

'Let us so live that we may be admitted with profit to frequent and even daily Communion; in a word, let us perfect ourselves in order to receive Communion worthily and let us live with a constant view to Communion.'

St. Peter Julian Eymard

[Shin]

'Just as water and fire cannot be combined, so self-justification and humility exclude one another.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'How happy is the soul who detaches herself from all pleasure, from all sentiment, from all self-opinionatedness! You will realize this happiness if you put all your satisfaction in the cross of Jesus; that is, if you die on the cross of your Saviour to all that is not God.'

St. Paul of the Cross

[Shin]

'There are virtues of the body and virtues of the soul. Those of the body include fasting, vigils, sleeping on the ground, ministering to people's needs, working with one's hands so as not to be a burden or in order to give to others (cf. 1 Thess. 2:9, Ephes. 4:28). Those of the soul include love, long-suffering, gentleness, self-control and prayer (cf. Gal, 5:22). If as a result of some constraint or bodily condition, such as illness or the like, we find we cannot practice the bodily virtues mentioned above, we are forgiven by the Lord because He knows the reasons. But if we fail to practice the virtues of the soul, we shall not have a single excuse, for it is always within our power to practice them.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'. . . Saint Ildephonsus did not hesitate to assert, "to say that Mary's sorrows were greater than all the torments of the martyrs united, was to say too little." And Saint Anselm adds, that "the most cruel tortures inflicted on the holy martyrs were trifling, or as nothing in comparison with the martyrdom of Mary." Saint Basil of Seleucia also writes, "that as the sun exceeds all the other planets in splendour, so did Mary's sufferings exceed those of all the other martyrs." A learned author concludes with a beautiful sentiment. He says that so great was the sorrow of this tender Mother in the Passion of Jesus, that she alone compassionated in a degree by any means adequate to its merits the death of a God made man.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'It is certain that the more we love a thing, the greater is the pain we feel in losing it. We are more afflicted at the loss of a brother than at that of a beast of burden; we are more grieved at the loss of a son than at that of a friend. Now, Cornelius a Lapide says, "that to understand the greatness of Mary's grief at the death of her Son, we must understand the greatness of the love she bore Him." But who can ever measure that love? Blessed Amadeus says that "in the heart of Mary were united two kinds of love for her Jesus--supernatural love, by which she loved Him as her God, and natural love, by which she loved Him as her Son." So that these two loves became one; but so immense a love, that William of Paris even says that the Blessed Virgin "loved Him as much as it was possible for a pure creature to love Him." Hence Richard of Saint Victor affirms that "as there was no love like her love, so there was no sorrow like her sorrow." And if the love of Mary towards her Son was immense, immense also must have been her grief in losing Him by death. "Where there is the greatest love," says Blessed Albert the Great, "there also is the greatest grief."'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'Brethren and fathers, at Christ's resurrection creation too, putting away its winter gloom, like a deadness puts out fresh shoots and as it were comes to life again. And yes, we see the earth wearing green, the plants flourishing, the animals skipping around, the sea tamed and everything being changed for the better.

But I must explain why I have said this. If inanimate and irrational creatures are made radiant and lovely by the resplendent resurrection, how much more ought we, who have been honoured with reason and the image of God, make ourselves bright by our life and give off sweet fragrance by the spirit. For one who strives after virtue is truly the sweet fragrance of Christ, and the Apostle bears witness to this when he says, For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ for God among those who are being saved and those who are perishing, for the latter a scent of death leading to death, for the former an scent of life leading to life [2 Cor. 2,15-16].'

St. Theodore the Studite

[Shin]

'Well, how goes it with you? Your heart would fain wing its flight to heaven, is it not so? But patience; you must wait till your divine Spouse give you permission.'

St. Paul of the Cross