Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'He who fails to reflect before acting, walks with his eyes shut and advances with danger. He also falls very often, because the eye of reflection does not enable him to see whither his footsteps lead.'

Pope St. Gregory the Great

[Shin]

'Sometimes men are tested by pleasure, sometimes by distress or by physical suffering. By means of His prescriptions the Physician of souls administers the remedy according to the cause of the passions lying hidden in the soul.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'As breathing is not only a sign but even a cause of life, so the name of Mary, which is constantly found on the lips of God's servants, both proves that they are truly alive, and at the same time causes and preserves their life, and gives them every succor.'

St. Germanus

[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]

'Keep careful watch, to ensure that the enemy does not make off with any who are off guard or remiss; and that no heretic may pervert part of what you have been given. Accepting the faith is like putting into the bank the money we have given you; God will ask you for an account of this deposit.'

St. Cyril of Jerusalem

[Shin]

'. . . Jews, heretics or heathens, belong not to God's friendship but to this world's peace. But the peace of the spiritual and of Catholics coming down from above and leading upwards refuses to hold communion with the lovers of the world, resists all obstacles and flies from pernicious pleasures to true joys, as the Lord says: "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:21)."'

Pope St. Leo the Great

[Shin]

'Obviously the need of this Christian instruction is accentuated by the decline of our times and morals. It is even more demanded by the existence of those public schools, lacking all religion, where everything holy is ridiculed and scorned. There both teachers' lips and students' ears are inclined to godlessness. We are referring to those schools which are unjustly called neutral or lay. In reality, they are nothing more than the stronghold of the powers of darkness.'

Pope St. Pius X, 'Editae Saepe'

[Shin]

'Every sin produces blindness; and as sin increases, so does the blindness increase. God is our light; as much, therefore, as the soul withdraws from God, so much the more blind does she become.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'In what does the praise of God consist, if not in a lamentation of the soul that it can never praise Him as it desires? And the desires, devotion, prayer and good will that a soul has to do good, all this is a sorrowful lamentation, and when I come to supply for it Myself, I heal it of all its wounds.'

The Lord, to St. Mechtilde

[Shin]

'I know by experience that the greatest punishment that can befall a people is a bad priest. It is best to leave a town without a priest than to send one who is unworthy. If God does not send me men who are truly called, God himself will have to take care of the men and souls by means of his angels. A call is God's gift. I must not bring the unworthy into the sheepfold to destroy it instead of tending it.'

St. Anthony Mary Claret

[Shin]

'As I looked, thrones were placed and one that was Ancient of Days took His seat; His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was like fiery flames, its wheels were like a burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.'

Daniel 7:9-10

[Shin]

'A passion which we allow to grow active within us through our own choice afterwards forces itself upon us against our will.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'Rightly motivated, the intellect will find the truth; but motivated by passion it will miss the mark.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

[Shin]

'God judges our intention, but in that which is within our power He, in man-befriending wise, also requires us to act. Great is he who leaves undone nothing that is within his power; but greater is he who humbly attempts what is beyond his power.'

St. John Climacus

[Shin]

'The reward of self-control is dispassion, and the reward of faith is spiritual knowledge. Dispassion engenders discrimination, and spiritual knowledge engenders love for God.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'Never do anything in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. Commend all to God and then lie still and be at rest in His Heart.'

St. Francis de Sales