Quote for the Day

[Shin]

'The Saints tell us that :
Faith is love that believes.
Hope is love that expects.
Adoration is love that worships.
Prayer is love that petitions.
Mercy is love that pardons.
Charity is love that sacrifices itself.
Mortification, martyrdom, is love that immolates itself.'

St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier

[Shin]

'Virtue does not consist in making good resolutions, nor in saying fine words, but in keeping ones resolutions and carrying out one's good intentions.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

[Shin]

'You are not the only one whom Jesus Christ treats thus: how many penitents have I not had whom the Lord has treated in this way nearly to the day of their death! One of them was continually tempted to hate God; another said without intermission that she had been condemned never to be able to love God, etc.; nevertheless they all died a happy death. And as for you, of what are you afraid? If you had not this cross of desolation, you would not have any cross in this world; and without a cross we cannot come to God. Besides, the pain that you feel on account of not being able to love God, is a proof that you love him; for if you did not love him you would not feel this pain. Those persons that do not love God feel no pain in thinking that they do not love him.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'According as you form a closer union and friendship with spiritual men, you will enjoy more happiness in the Lord.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'Everything is the Father's will: homeland, fortune, happiness, work, food, life, Jesus' death. Let His will be mine.'

St. Bernadette Soubirous

[Shin]

'Provided that humility and sweetness are not lacking in you, the goodness of God will not fail to help you to fulfil, not only without repugnance, but even with joy, whatever promises you have made Him.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'My son, cast not away the discipline of our Lord: neither do thou faint when thou art chastened of him:
for whom our Lord loveth he chastiseth: and as a father in the son he pleaseth himself.

Proverbs 3:11-12

[Shin]

'Blessed is the man that findeth wisdom, and floweth with prudence:
better is the purchasing thereof then merchandise of silver, and her fruit then chief and the purest gold:
she is more precious then all riches: and all things that are desired, are not able to be compared with her.'

Proverbs 3:13-15

[Shin]

'Brother Egidius, of the Order of St. Francis, once said to St. Bonaventure: "Happy you, O Father Bonaventure, who are so learned, and who, by your learning, can become more holy than I can, who am a poor ignorant man." "Listen," replied the saint: "if an old woman knows how to love God better than I do, she is more learned and more holy than I am." At hearing this, Brother Egidius exclaimed: "poor old woman! poor old woman! Father Bonaventure says that, if you love God more than he does, you can surpass him in sanctity."'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'Seek God at least late, since He has now for a long time been warning and exhorting you through the prophet, saying: "Seek God, and your soul shall live."'

St. Cyprian of Carthage

[Shin]

'For since our God is pure, or rather the highest light, he comes to the pure, and as he has placed a pure soul in us, he will also ask it from us pure. For since it has been made according to God's image and likeness, that is to say as a figure1 of the divine beauty, it has also shared in that beauty. And knowing this the poet speaks thus, "Lord, by your will you granted power to my beauty" [Psalm 29,8], that is to say to the beauty of the soul, lest, having turned away towards the ugly passions of sin and become disfigured, it fall from God and his divine rewards. Since therefore it is agreed that our soul should be like this, lovely and beautiful, and that we should give it back to God like a pledge on the last day, the day of resurrection, I beg and urge that we love this beauty and carefully guard this loveliness, not turning back to the fair things of the present age or to the beauties of flesh and blood. They are not beauties, but idols of beauty; they are rather corruption and change. And this we can learn from the end of things, for one who today is outstandingly beautiful and fair of face is tomorrow cast into a tomb, stinking and abhorrent. So there is nothing fair and loveable but exemplary virtue, which should be our chief pursuit, my brothers. But if admittedly it frequently happens that the soul grows slack and is defiled by unseemly thoughts -- for who will boast that they have a pure heart? -- let it be quickly made clean again and brought back to its former condition, lest by delaying in evil it gives birth to death. And let no one ever say that they cannot be made clean again, stained as they are by many sins, when they listen to the One who said, "Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow. Though they are like crimson, I will make them white as wool" [Isaias 1,18]. Do you see God's ineffable love for humankind? Not only has he promised to purify, but to bring the one who repents to the pinnacle of loveliness.'

St. Theodore the Studite

[Shin]

'You who judge others, at some time be also a judge of yourself, look into the recesses of your own conscience; rather, because there is no shame, indeed, in doing wrong, and sin is so committed as if pleasure came rather through sins themselves, do you who are seen clearly and nakedly by all yourself also look upon yourself.'

St. Cyprian of Carthage

[Shin]

'They who load us with insults and ignominies give us the means of acquiring treasures more precious than any that man can gain in this life.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'Let us now return to our orchard, or flower-garden, and behold now how the trees begin to fill with sap for the bringing forth of the blossoms, and then of the fruit - the flowers and the plants, also, their fragrance. This illustration pleases me; for very often, when I was beginning - and our Lord grant that I have really begun to serve His Majesty - I mean, begun in relation to what I have to say of my life, - it was to me a great joy to consider my soul as a garden, and our Lord as walking in it. I used to beseech Him to increase the fragrance of the little flowers of virtues - which were beginning, as it seemed to bud - and preserve them, that they might be to His glory; for I desired nothing for myself. I prayed Him to cut those He liked, because I already knew that they would grow the better.

I say cut; for there are times in which the soul has no recollection of this garden - everything seems parched, and there is no water to be had for preserving it - and in which it seems as if the soul had never possessed any virtue at all. This is the season of heavy trials; for our Lord will have the poor gardener suppose all the trouble he took in maintaining and watering the garden to have been taken to no purpose. Then is the time really for weeding and rooting out every plant, however small it may be, that is worthless, in the knowledge that no efforts of ours are sufficient, if God withholds from us the waters of His grace; and in despising ourselves as being nothing, and even less than nothing. In this way we gain great humility - the flowers grow afresh.

O my Lord and my Good! I cannot utter these words without tears, and rejoicing in my soul; for Thou wilt be thus with us, and art with us, in the Sacrament. We may believe so most truly; for so it is, and the comparison I make is a great truth; and, if our sins stand not in the way, we may rejoice in Thee, because Thou rejoicest in us; for Thou hast told us that Thy delight is to be with the children of men. O my Lord, what does it mean? Whenever I hear these words, they always give me great consolation, and did so even when I was most wicked.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

[Shin]

'. . . I have as mine abode a solitary monastery in a remote village, where without much distraction of mind, I can practice that which is sung in the Psalm, "Be still, saith He, and know that I am God."'

St. Vincent of Lerins

[Shin]

'If there is a beginning of mixing the new with the old, foreign ideas with genuine, and profane elements with sacred, this habit will creep in everywhere, without check. In the end, nothing in the Church will be left untouched, unimpaired, unhurt, and unstained. Where formerly there was a sanctuary of chaste and uncorrupted truth, there will be a brothel of impious and filthy errors.

May divine compassion divert such shocking impiety from the minds of its children; instead, may the impious crowd itself be left in its madness!'

St. Vincent of Lerins