Quote for the Day

[Shin]

'We should offer ourselves and all we have to God, that He may dispose of us according to His holy will, so that we may be ever ready to leave all and embrace the afflictions that come upon us.'

St. Vincent de Paul

[Shin]

'Brother Dominic, Canon of Osma, the Least Among Preachers, Sends Greetings in Christ to All of His Faithful to Whom This Letter Comes

By the authority of the Lord Abbot of Citeaux, Legate of the Apostolic See, who enjoined this function on us, we reconcile the bearer of this letter, Pons Roger, who has, by God's mercy, been converted from the sect of the heretics.

In virtue of the Sacrament which has been administered, we command that, three Sundays or days of major feasts, a priest march him, stripped to the waist and under continuous flogging, from the entrance to the city to the church. Moreover, we command him to abstain at all times from meat, eggs, and cheeses, or all things which are conceived from the seed of flesh, except on Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, and Christmas, when, for the rejection of his former error, we command him to eat these things. He should keep three Lents each year, fasting and abstaining from fish. Three days every week, perpetually, he should fast and abstain from fish, olive-oil, and wine, unless bodily infirmity or summer heat makes a dispensation necessary. He should wear clothes which are religious in both their style and color, with a small cross sewed on each side over the breast. If it is opportune, he should hear Mass daily and, on major feast days, he should go to church for Vespers. Wherever he may be, he should praise God at all [canonical] hours of night and day in the following way: seven times a day he should say the Our Father ten times, at midnight, twenty. He should observe total chastity and live at Treveille. He should show this letter to his chaplain every month. Moreover, we command the chaplain to supervise his life with diligent care, until the Lord Legate otherwise expresses his will on these matters. Should he refuse to observe these directives, we command that he be deemed a perjurer and a heretic excommunicated from association with the faithful.'

St. Dominic

[Shin]

'To fast well is to enjoy simple food in small amounts and to shun other people's esteem.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

[Shin]

'My daughters must believe that it is for their own good that the Lord has enabled me to realize in some small degree what blessings are to be found in holy poverty. Those of them who practice it will also realize this, though perhaps not as clearly as I do; for, although I had professed poverty, I was not only without poverty of spirit, but my spirit was devoid of all restraint. Poverty is good and contains within itself all the good things in the world. It is a great domain -- I mean that he who cares nothing for the good things of the world has dominion over them all. What do kings and lords matter to me if I have no desire to possess their money, or to please them, if by so doing I should cause the least displeasure to God? And what do their honours mean to me if I have realized that the chief honour of a poor man consists in his being truly poor?'

St. Teresa of Jesus

[Shin]

'They slew by nailing to the tree Him who had brought to life their dead, had healed their maimed, had made their lepers clean, had given light to their blind. Behold, you sons of men! behold, all you people, these new wonders! They suspended Him on the tree, who stretches out the earth; they transfixed Him with nails who laid firm the foundation of the world; they circumscribed Him who circumscribed the heavens; they bound Him who absolves sinners; they gave Him vinegar to drink who has made them to drink of righteousness; they fed Him with gall who has offered to them the Bread of Life; they caused corruption to come upon His hands, and feet who healed their hands and feet; they violently closed His eyes who restored sight to them; they gave Him over to the tomb, who raised their dead to life both in the time before His Passion and also while He was hanging on the tree.'

St. Alexander of Alexandria

[Shin]

'God was pleased to ransom us, to suffer ignominy to glory us, to choose poverty to enrich us, to die in the disgrace and agony of one condemned to secure for us everlasting life in the happiness of Heaven.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'Everything we say or do without prayer afterwards turns out to be unreliable or harmful, and so shows us up without our realizing it.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'There is a way, that seems right to a man, but the end of it leads to death.'

Proverbs 14:12

[Shin]

'If you truly love God and long to reach the kingdom that is to come, if you are truly pained by your failings and are mindful of punishment and of the eternal judgment, if you are truly afraid to die, then it will not be possible to have an attachment, or anxiety, or concern for money, for possessions, for family relationships, for worldly glory, for love and brotherhood, indeed for anything of earth. All worry about one's condition, even for one's body, will be pushed aside as hateful. Stripped of all thought of these, caring nothing about them, one will return freely to Christ. One will look to heaven and to the help coming from there, as in the scriptural sayings: "I will cling close to you" (Psalm 62:9) and "I have not grown tired of following you nor have I longed for the day or the rest that man gives" (Jeremiah 17:16)'

St. John Climacus

[Shin]

'The earth under the ancient curse brought forth thorns and thistles; but now the Church beholds it laughing with flowers and restored by the grace of a new benediction. Mindful of the verse, "My heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I praise Him", she refreshes herself with the fruits of His Passion which she gathers from the Tree of the Cross, and with the flowers of His Resurrection whose fragrance invites the frequent visits of her Spouse.'

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

[Shin]

'You will note that the Lord establishes as the prime good contemplation, that is the gaze turned in the direction of the things of God. Hence we say that the other virtues, however useful and good we may say they are, must nevertheless be put on a secondary level, since they are all practiced for the sake of this one. "You are full of worry and are upset over many things when actually it should be over a few or even one." In saying this the Lord locates the primary good not in activity, however praiseworthy, however abundantly fruitful, but in the truly simple and unified contemplation of Himself.'

St. John Cassian

[Shin]

'He who has succeeded in attaining the virtues and is enriched with spiritual knowledge sees things clearly in their true nature. Consequently, he both acts and speaks with regard to all things in a manner which is fitting, and he is never deluded. For according to whether we use things rightly or wrongly we become either good or bad.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'Since the Mother, then, should have the same power as the Son, rightly has Jesus, who is omnipotent, made Mary also omnipotent; though of course it is always true that where the Son is omnipotent by nature, the Mother is only by grace. But that she is so is evident from the fact that whatever the Mother asks for, the Son never denies her; and this was revealed to St. Bridget, who one day heard Jesus talking with Mary, and thus address her: "Ask of Me what thou wilt, for no petition of thine can be void." As if He had said, "My Mother, thou knowest how much I love thee; therefore ask all that thou wilt of Me; for it is not possible that I should refuse thee anything." And the reason that He gave for this was beautiful: "Because thou never didst deny Me anything on earth, I will deny thee nothing in heaven." My Mother, when thou wast in the world, thou never didst refuse to do anything for the love of Me; and now that I am in heaven, it is right that I should deny thee nothing that thou askest. Mary, then, is called omnipotent in the sense in which it can be understood of a creature who is incapable of a divine attribute. She is omnipotent, because by her prayers she obtains whatever she wills.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

[Shin]

'For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the concupiscence thereof: but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever.'

1 John 2:16-2:17

[Shin]

'Our perfection consists in uniting our will so intimately with God's will, that we will only desire what He wills. He who conforms most perfectly to the will of God will be the most perfect Christian.'

St. Vincent de Paul

[Shin]

'I see more clearly than the day that a life without the love of Jesus Christ is the greatest of all miseries.'

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque