Quote for the Day

[Shin]

'The reason why so many souls who apply themselves to prayer are not inflamed with God's love is, that they neglect to carefully prepare themselves for it.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

[Shin]

'Since they attack the very root of faith either by openly denying, hypocritically undermining, or misrepresenting revealed doctrine, we should above all recall the truth Charles often taught. "The primary and most important duty of pastors is to guard everything pertaining to the integral and inviolate maintenance of the Catholic Faith, the faith which the Holy Roman Church professes and teaches, without which it is impossible to please God." Again: "In this matter no diligence can be too great to fulfill the certain demands of our office." We must therefore use sound doctrine to withstand "the leaven of heretical depravity," which if not repressed, will corrupt the whole. That is to say, we must oppose these erroneous opinions now deceitfully being scattered abroad, which, when taken all together, are called Modernism. With Charles we must be mindful "of the supreme zeal and excelling diligence which the bishop must exercise in combating the crime of heresy."'

Pope St. Pius X, 'Editae Saepe'

[Shin]

'He who beholds Heaven with a pure eye, sees better the darkness of earth; for, although the latter seems to have some brilliancy, it disappears before the splendor of the heavens.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'The fear of God compels us to fight against evil; and when we fight against evil, the grace of God destroys it.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'Some thoughts are simple, others are composite. Thoughts which are not impassioned are simple. Passion-charged thoughts are composite, consisting as they do of a conceptual image combined with passion. This being so, when composite thoughts begin to provoke a sinful idea in the mind, many simple thoughts may be seen to follow them. For instance, an impassioned thought about gold rises in someone's mind. He has the urge mentally to steal the gold and commits the sin in his intellect. Then thoughts of the purse, the chest, the room and so on follow hard on the thought of the gold. The thought of the gold was composite - for it was combined with passion - but those of the purse, the chest and so on were simple; for the intellect had no passion in relation to these things. And the same is true for every thought - thoughts of self-esteem, women and so on. For not all thoughts which follow impassioned thought are themselves impassioned, as our example has shown. From this, then, we may know which conceptual images are impassioned and which are not.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'But if any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.'

James 1:5

[Shin]

'Strive ever to have a loving and filial fear, which will lead you to do good and avoid evil, rejecting all other fears, for they only come from the spirit of darkness.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

[Shin]

'It is useless to subdue the flesh by abstinence, unless one gives up his irregular life, and abandons vices which defile his soul.'

St. Benedict

[Shin]

'It costs little to tell God we love Him when He is showering favors upon us; it is in the midst of the tempest that we must cry out to Him like Job: "Although He should kill me, I will trust Him."'

Bl. Peter Julian Eymard

[Shin]

'It was revealed to St. Gertrude, that when any one repeats with devotion these words to the Virgin: "Turn, then, towards us, oh our advocate, thy pitying eyes," Mary never fails to listen to the prayer.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'If a man should have no one to instruct him, God will show him, unless he culpably wishes to remain where he is.'

St. Thomas Aquinas

[Shin]

'We must exercise the spirit which God gives us in prayer, and follow that; so that, when, for example, it inclines us to meditate on the Passion, we must not wish to meditate on some other mystery.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Perfection of life consists in drawing close to God. Heaven is the possession of God. In heaven God is contemplated, adored, loved. But to attain heaven it's necessary to be detached from what is earthly. What is the life of a Carmelite if not one of contemplating, adoring and loving God incessantly? And she, by being desirous for that heaven, distances herself from the world and tries to detach herself as much as possible from everything earthly.'

St. Teresa of the Andes

[Shin]

'Let us concentrate ourselves so completely in the divine love, and enter so far into the living fountain of wisdom, through the wounded Side of our Incarnate God, that we may deny ourselves and our self-love, and so be unable to find our way out of that Wound again.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Acting according to this pattern, one not only becomes holy but also enjoys perpetual serenity in this life. Alphonsus the Great, King of Aragon, being asked one day whom he considered the happiest person in the world, answered: "He who abandons himself to the will of God and accepts all things, prosperous and adverse, as coming from his hands." "To those that love God, all things work together unto good." Those who love God are always happy, because their whole happiness is to fulfill, even in adversity, the will of God. Afflictions do not mar their serenity, because by accepting misfortune, they know they give pleasure to their beloved Lord: "Whatever shall befall the just man, it shall not make him sad." Indeed, what can be more satisfactory to a person than to experience the fulfillment of all his desires? This is the happy lot of the man who wills only what God wills, because everything that happens, save sin, happens through the will of God.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'Again in Psalm 23 "the rod" is said to signify God's judgment and "the staff" His providence. So he who has received spiritual knowledge of these things is able to say, "Thy rod and Thy staff have comforted me."'

St. Maximos the Confessor