Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'Each time that a creature offers to my Father the Blood by which she has been redeemed, she offers Him a gift of infinite value."

The Lord, to St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi

[Shin]

'To establish ourselves in a virtue it is necessary to form good and practical resolutions to perform certain and determined acts of that virtue, and we must, moreover, be faithful in executing them.'

St. Vincent de Paul

[Shin]

'Have you forgotten the sin against the sixth commandment which you committed yesterday? . . . Put your affairs in order, for you will die in three days. . . for your sin has been going on too long and the measure is full; all that I can promise you is to pray fervently for your salvation.'

St. Lydwine of Schiedam

[Shin]

'In the very beginning of our renunciation, it is certainly with labour and grief that we practise the virtues. But when we have made progress in them, we no longer feel sorrow, or we feel little sorrow. But as soon as our mortal mind is consumed, and mastered by our alacrity, we practise them with all joy and eagerness, with love and with divine fire.'

St. John Climacus

[Shin]

'Live in the world as if only God and your soul were alone in it. Then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.'

St. John of the Cross

[Shin]

'Consider the shortness of time, the length of eternity, and reflect how everything here below comes to an end and passes by. Of what use is it to lean upon that which cannot give support?'

St. Gerard Majella

[Shin]

'He who is sluggish in prayer, and slothful and negligent in serving his brethren and in performing other holy tasks, is explicitly called an idler by the apostle, and condemned as unworthy even of his bread. For St. Paul writes that the idler is not to have any food (cf. 2 Thess. 3:10); and elsewhere it is said that God hates idlers, that the idle man cannot be trusted, and that idleness has taught great evil (cf. Ecclus. 33:27). Thus each of us should bear the fruit of some action performed in God's name, even if he has employed himself diligently in but one good work. Otherwise he will be totally barren, and without any share in eternal blessings.'

St. Symeon Metaphrastis

[Shin]

'For as those who are causes of scandals inherit the Woe, so those who incite to virtue inherit blessing. And never, brethren, let us fall away from the good state and the praiseworthy way of life, nor let us leave off loving God; for it is written, You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole strength and your whole mind.'

St. Theodore the Studite

Those who incite to virtue inherit blessing. 

[Shin]

'My children, some people make bad confessions without taking any notice of it. These persons say, "I do not know what is the matter with me" . . . They are tormented, and they do not know why. They have not that agility which makes one go straight to the good God; they have something heavy and weary about them which fatigues them. My children, that is because of sins that remain, often even venial sins, for which one has some affection. There are some people who, indeed, tell everything, but they have no repentance; and they go at once to Holy Communion. Thus the Blood of Our Lord is profaned! They go to the Holy Table with a sort of weariness. They say, "Yet, I accused myself of all my sins . . . I do not know what is the matter with me." There is an unworthy Communion, and they were hardly aware of it!'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

[Shin]

'So then for things which cannot be seen, things which Angels too hope to glimpse, for the Bridegroom Christ to whom we are betrothed, I ask and beseech you, brethren, that keep our own soul pure from evil deeds, from sordid thoughts, which defile us, as the Lord said; not thinking any wickedness at all; for by thinking desire is set alight like fire; but taking our stand far from the passions and beating off the tempter from the moment of provocation, both by good works making the soul resplendent, and holding fast more fervently to the self-mastery which lies before us, so that, when we have in purity passed over from things here, we may depart in unspeakable joy to heaven and delight in the joy of the heavenly bridal chamber, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.'

St. Theodore the Studite

[Shin]

'The devil always strives to deceive heretics, by suggesting to them that they can be saved in their belief.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'Princes should in a special manner be watchful that their states be purged of people that profess false doctrine; hence many Catholic sovereigns admit to their service neither heretics nor schismatics. They should also strictly prohibit the introduction of books infected with pernicious doctrines; the want of precaution of certain princes against this sort of books has caused the ruin of several kingdoms.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'By the test of suffering the chaff in the Church of God is distinguished from the wheat: he that humbles himself under tribulations, and is resigned to the will of God, is wheat for paradise; he that grows haughty and is enraged, and so forsakes God, is chaff for hell.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'We must never pray for a favour for anyone, except conditionally, saying, "If it please God," or the like.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God.'

St. Catherine of Siena

[Shin]

'In giving alms to the poor we must act as good ministers of the Providence of God.'

St. Philip Neri