Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'I am the Creator of heaven and earth, who was true God and true man in the Virgin's womb, who died and rose again and ascended into heaven. You, my new bride, have come to an unknown place. Therefore you must learn four things: first, to know the language of the place; second, how to be properly dressed; third, how to organize your days and your time according to the nature of the place; fourth, to get accustomed to new kinds of food. Inasmuch as you have come from the instability of the world unto stability, you must learn a new language, that is, how to abstain from useless words and even from legitimate ones due to the importance of silence and quiet. You should be dressed in interior and exterior humility so that you neither extol yourself inwardly as being holier than others nor are outwardly ashamed of acting humbly in public. Third, your time should be regulated so that, just as you often used to make time for the needs of the body, so now you should only have time for the soul and never want to sin against me. Fourth, your new food is prudent abstinence from gluttony and from delicacies, as far as your natural constitution can endure it. Acts of abstinence that go beyond the capacity of nature are not to my liking, for I demand rationality and the taming of lusts.'

The Lord, to St. Bridget of Sweden

[Shin]

'How little is required to be a saint! It suffices to do in all things the will of God.'

St. Vincent de Paul

[Shin]

'Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there. I am not now speaking of simple charity, a love due to all mankind, but of that spiritual friendship which binds souls together, leading them to share devotions and spiritual interests, so as to have but one mind between them. . . There are two sayings in Holy Scripture on which all Christian friendship should be built: - that of the Wise Man, "Whoso feareth the Lord shall direct his friendship aright;" and that of St. James, "The friendship of the world is enmity with God."'

St. Francis de Sales

[Shin]

'Humble me as much as you want. Console me only when it may help me accept suffering and persevere until death. Since the graces I ask are the fruits of your abandonment, bring virtue out of my weakness and glorify yourself in my misery, O my Jesus, the only refuge of my soul.'

St. Bernadette Soubirous

[Shin]

'I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you. Yet a little while: and the world seeth me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live. In that day you shall know, that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.'

John 14:18-20

[Shin]

'When the body is urged by the senses to indulge its own desires and pleasures, the corrupted intellect readily succumbs and assents to its impassioned fantasies and impulses. But the regenerated intellect exercises self-control and withholds itself from them. Moreover, as a true philosopher it studies how to rectify such impulses.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'Rejoice not in ungodly children, if they be multiplied: neither be delighted in them, if the fear of God be not with them.

Credit not their life, and respect not their labours. For better is one that feareth God, than a thousand impious children.

And it is better to die without children, than to leave ungodly children.'

Ecclesiasticus 16:1-4

[Shin]

'Do not let the devil frighten you. Keep yourself hidden in God, and nothing can hurt you.'

St. Paul of the Cross

[Shin]

'Not to know how to deny our soul its own wishes, is to foment a very hot-bed of vices.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'For my part, I think it better that one should eat every day, but only a little, so as not to be satisfied.'

St. Poemen

[Shin]

'We must persuade ourselves that we are nothing, that we can do nothing, that we know nothing.'

St. Paul of the Cross

[Shin]

'Whenever we do a good work, and somebody else takes the credit of it, we ought to rejoice, and acknowledge it as a gift from God. Anyhow, we ought not to be sorry, because if others diminish our glory before men, we shall recover it with all the more honour before God.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Let us open our eyes, dearest brother, for we have two wills -- one of the senses, which seeks the things of sense, and the other the self-will of the spirit, which, under aspect and colour of virtue, holds firm to its own way. And this is clear when it wants to choose places and seasons and consolations to suit itself, and says: "Thus I wish in order to possess God more fully." This is a great cheat, and an illusion of the devil; for not being able to deceive the servants of God through their first will -- since the servants of God have already mortified it so far as the things of sense go -- the devil catches their second will on the sly with things of the spirit.'

St. Catherine of Siena

[Shin]

'A diligent charity in ministering to the sick, is a compendious way to the acquisition of perfect virtue.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Nature and grace cannot subsist together in the same heart. The one must always make room for the other.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

[Shin]

'Beginners should look after their own conversion and be humble, lest they should fancy they had done some great thing, and so should fall into pride.'

St. Philip Neri