Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'He that hath given forth his money upon usury, or hath taken increase, shall he live? he shall not live, saith the Lord.'

Ezekiel 18:12-13

[Shin]

'When a man knows how to break down his own will and to deny his soul what it desires, he has got a good degree in virtue.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'The Virgin Mother, all pure and all white, will make her servants pure and white.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'A man of prayer is capable of everything. He can say with St. Paul, "I can do all things in Him who strengthened me."'

St. Vincent de Paul

[Shin]

'Once humility is acquired, charity will come to life - a burning flame devouring the corruption of vice and filling the heart so full that there is no place for vanity.'

St. Vincent Ferrer

[Shin]

'You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much. I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love.'

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

[Shin]

'A true Catholic is he who loves the truth revealed by God, who loves the Church, the Body of Christ, who esteems religion, the Catholic faith, higher than any human authority, talents, eloquence, and philosophy; all this he holds in contempt, and remains firm and unshaken in the faith which, he knows, has always from the beginning been held by the Catholic Church; and if he notices that any one, no, matter who he may be, interprets a dogma in a manner different from that of the Fathers of the Church, he understands that God permits such an interpretation to be made, not for the good of religion, but as a temptation, according to the words of St. Paul: "For there must be also heresies; that they also, who are reproved, may be made manifest among you." (I Cor. xi. 19) "And indeed, no sooner are novel opinions proclaimed, than it becomes manifest what kind of a Catholic a man is;"'

St. Vincent of Lerins

[Shin]

'Nor indeed will he err in accounting them the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church.

For as We have said, they put their designs for her ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain, the more intimate is their knowledge of her. Moreover they lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fires. And having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt.

Further, none is more skilful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance.

To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality. Finally, and this almost destroys all hope of cure, their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.'

Pope St. Pius X

[Shin]

'The Lord grants in a moment what we may have been unable to obtain in dozens of years.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Blessed the one who has become wholly free in the Lord from all the earthly things of this vain life and loved God alone, the good and compassionate.'

St. Ephrem of Syria

[Shin]

'Unless various successive spiritual contemplations also occupy the intellect, the practice of virtues by itself cannot free it so entirely from passions that it is able to pray undistractedly. Practice of the virtues frees the intellect only from dissipation and hatred; spiritual contemplation releases it also from forgetfulness and ignorance. In this way the intellect can pray as it should.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'Fancy a mother who playfully holds in her arms a child over the edge of a high wall, or over the brink of a precipice. Who could believe that this mother would let her child fall? Neither can I persuade myself that God will let me fall into the depths of hell if I rely on Him; therefore I repose with perfect security on the bosom of Divine Goodness much more peacefully than does a child in the arms of its mother.'

St. Paul of the Cross

[Shin]

'He Himself says of His own, "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (2 Cor. vi. 16.).

Doubt not, therefore, that wherever there are holy souls, there He is in them. For if thou art in those limbs of thine which thou quickenest, wholly and in all their parts, how much more is God, who created thee and thy body, wholly present in thee through and through?'

St. Anselm of Canterbury

[Shin]

'If you live not in the body which is Christ, you are none of His. Whose, then, are you? You have been cut off and will wither, and like the branch pruned from the vine, you will burn in the fire - an end which may God's goodness keep far from you.'

Pope St. Leo IX, regarding the so-called "Orthodox" schismatics

[Shin]

'If anyone abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth.'

John 15:6

[Shin]

'Act bravely, my Brethren; take courage, and trust in the Lord. The time is fast approaching in which there will be great trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and temporal, will abound; the charity of many will grow cold, and the malice of the wicked will increase.

The devils will have unusual power, the immaculate purity of our Order, and of others, will be so much obscured that there will be very few Christians who will obey the true Sovereign Pontiff and the Roman Church with loyal hearts and perfect charity. At the time of this tribulation a man, not canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning, will endeavour to draw many into error and death.

Then scandals will be multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it.

There will be such diversity of opinions and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion, by the immense mercy of God.'

St. Francis of Assisi