Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'One day, two Protestant ministers came here, who did not believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord. I said to them, "Do you think that a piece of bread could detach itself, and go, of its own accord, to place itself on the tongue of a person who came near to receive it?" "No." "Then it is not bread." There was a man who had doubts about the Real Presence, and he said, "What do we know about it? It is not certain. What is consecration? What happens on the altar at that moment?" But he wished to believe, and he prayed the Blessed Virgin to obtain faith for him. Listen attentively to this. I do not say that this happened somewhere, but I say that it happened to myself. At the moment when this man came up to receive Holy Communion, the Sacred Host detached Itself from my fingers while I was still a good way off, and went off Itself and placed Itself upon the tongue of that man.'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

[Shin]

'Blessed the one whose thought has been with grace, like a cloud filled with rain, and which waters souls for the increase of fruits of life; his praise will be for everlasting glory.'

St. Ephrem of Syria

[Shin]

'It is said that gold rules everything; but spiritual things are ruled by the grace of God.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'St. Gregory the Great nourished himself with a dish of vegetables, as I have seen in an old engraving, in which his mother, St. Sylvia, is also represented; and in our times there is so much delicacy that we fear to impose upon ourselves even some moderate penances. St. Gregory, of a noble family, young, and of a delicate constitution, learned at the school of pious monks to content himself with a dish of vegetables sent him every day, as an alms, by his mother.'

St. Paul of the Cross

[Shin]

'When we enter ornate and clean Basilicas, adorned with crosses, sacred images, altars and burning lamps, we most easily conceive devotion. But on the other hand, when we enter the temples of the heretics, where there is nothing except a chair for preaching and a table for making a meal, we feel ourselves to be entering a profane hall and not the House of God.'

St. Robert Bellarmine

[Shin]

'The intellect that has shut out the senses, and has achieved a balance in the body's temperament has to fight only against its memories.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

[Shin]

'I know that after my death some men will come to you, bringing new doctrines, new constitutions, new ceremonies. Do not believe them. If an angel from heaven should so come, let him be anathema.'

St. John of Capistrano

[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]

'When an intellect forgets real knowledge, it fights with men for harmful things as though they were helpful.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'Apply thyself to sacred studies, and fix thy thoughts on the blessings that are of God. Leave temporal things behind, and make for the eternal.'

St. Anselm of Canterbury

[Shin]

'Everyone receives what he deserves in accordance with his inner state. But only God understands the many different ways in which this happens.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'He who wishes to advance in spirituality, should never slur over his defects negligently without particular examination of conscience, even independent of the time of sacramental confession.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'You must flee from sensual things. Truly every time a man comes close to a struggle with sensuality, he is like a man standing at the edge of a deep lake, and the Enemy throws him in whenever he likes. But if the man lives far from sensual things, he is like one who stands at a distance from the lake, so that even if the Enemy entices him in order to throw him to the bottom, God sends him help at the very moment that the Enemy is drawing him away and doing him violence.'

St. Poemen

[Shin]

'It is one of the most firmly established and most consoling of the truths that have been revealed to us that (apart from sin) nothing happens to us in life unless God wills it so. Wealth and poverty alike come from Him. If we fall ill, God is the cause of our illness; if we get well, our recovery is due to God. We owe our lives entirely to Him, and when death comes to put an end to life, His will be the hand that deals the blow.

But should we attribute it to God when we are unjustly persecuted? Yes, He is the only person you can charge with the wrong you suffer. He is not the cause of the sin the person commits by ill-treating you, but He is the cause of the suffering that person inflicts on you while sinning.

God did not inspire your enemy with the will to harm you, but He gave him the power to do so. If you receive a wound, do not doubt but that it is God Himself who has wounded you. If all living creatures were to league themselves against you, unless the Creator wished it and joined with them and gave them the strength and means to carry out their purpose, they would never succeed. You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above, the Savior of the world said to Pilate. We can say the same to demons and men, to the brute beasts and to whatever exists -- You would not be able to disturb me or harm me as you do unless God had ordered it so. You are sent by Him you are given the power by Him to tempt me and to make me suffer. You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above.

If from time to time we meditated seriously on this truth of our faith it would be enough to stifle all complaint in whatever loss or misfortune we suffer. What I have the Lord gave me, it has been taken away by Him. It is not a lawsuit or a thief that has ruined you or a certain person that has slandered you; if your child dies it is not by accident or wrong treatment, but because God, to whom all belongs, has not wished you to keep it longer.'

Bl. Claude de la Colombiere

[Shin]

'Let us think, if we only got to heaven, what a sweet and easy thing it will be there to be always saying with the angels and the saints, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'I say, God loves His creature with a perfection that cannot be understood, nor could it be even by an angelic intellect which would fail to comprehend even its slightest spark.'

St. Catherine of Genoa