Quote for the Night

[Shin]

'Stillness, prayer, love and self-control are a four-horsed chariot bearing the intellect to heaven.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

[Shin]

'The paralytic let down through the roof (cf. Mark 2:4) signifies a sinner reproved in God's name by the faithful and receiving forgiveness because of their faith.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world.'

John 6:51-52

[Shin]

'It is true that God promises forgiveness if we repent, but what assurance have we of obtaining it tomorrow?'

St. Louis de Blois

[Shin]

'Now is the time to humble myself and show God that I love Him.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

[Shin]

'Christ is Master by virtue of His own essence and Master by virtue of His incarnate life. For He creates man from nothing, and through His own Blood redeems him when dead in sin; and to those who believe in Him He has given His grace.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day -- from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.'

St. Patrick

[Shin]

'So let no one tell me that he is unfit for the monastic life because of the weight and number of his misdeeds, or that because of his addiction to pleasure he must be excused for remaining stuck in his sin. The more the putrefaction, the greater the need for treatment, if the uncleanness is to be done away with, for the healthy do not make their way to the doctor's surgery."

St. John Climacus

[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]

'One does not speak of the works of God, even with the least of mortals, without drawing great profit from it.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'He who labors as he prays lifts his heart to God with his hands.'

St. Benedict

[Shin]

'Brethren and fathers, now that we have fasted for the first week we appear to each other somewhat different to what we were, leaner and paler. But even if our outward nature is wasting away, as the Apostle says, the inner is being renewed day by day. For what it is to see a body healthy-looking and sleek through pleasure; this it is to understand what follows for the soul through self-mastery, so that by humbling the body we shall bring about the beauty of the soul. . .'

St. Theodore the Studite