Quote for the Day

[Shin]

'In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed.'

St. Augustine

[Shin]

'But it will be well to note what class of people takes comfort in the thought of God. Surely not that perverse and crooked generation to whom it was said, "Woe unto you that are rich; for ye have received your consolation" (Luke 6.24). Rather, those who can say with truth, "My soul refuseth comfort" (Ps. 77.2). For it is meet that those who are not satisfied by the present should be sustained by the thought of the future, and that the contemplation of eternal happiness should solace those who scorn to drink from the river of transitory joys. That is the generation of them that seek the Lord, even of them that seek, not their own, but the face of the God of Jacob. To them that long for the presence of the living God, the thought of Him is sweetest itself: but there is no satiety, rather an ever-increasing appetite, even as the Scripture bears witness, "they that eat me shall yet be hungry" (Ecclus. 24.21); and if the one an-hungered spake, "When I awake up after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it." Yea, blessed even now are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they, and they only, shall be filled. Woe to you, wicked and perverse generation; woe to you, foolish and abandoned people, who hate Christ's memory, and dread His second Advent! Well may you fear, who will not now seek deliverance from the snare of the hunter; because "they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts" (I Tim. 6.9). In that day we shall not escape the dreadful sentence of condemnation, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire" (Matt. 25.41). O dreadful sentence indeed, O hard saying! How much harder to bear than that other saying which we repeat daily in church, in memory of the Passion: 'Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life' (John 6.54). That signifies, whoso honors My death and after My example mortifies his members which are upon the earth (Col. 3.5) shall have eternal life, even as the apostle says, "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him" (II Tim. 2.12).'

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

[Shin]

'If it is not easy to find anyone conforming to God's will who has not been put to the test, we ought to thank God for everything that happens to us.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'A day will come, perhaps it is not far off, when we must bid goodbye to life, goodbye to the world, goodbye to our relations, goodbye to our friends. When shall we return, my children? Never. We appear upon this earth, we disappear, and we return no more; our poor body, that we take such care of, goes away into dust, and our soul, all trembling, goes to appear before the good God. When we quit this world, where we shall appear no more, when our last breath of life escapes, and we say our last goodbye, we shall wish to have passed our life in solitude, in the depths of a desert, far from the world and its pleasures. We have these examples of repentance before our eyes every day, my children, and we remain always the same. We pass our life gaily, without ever troubling ourselves about eternity. By our indifference to the service of the good God, one would think we were never going to die.'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

[Shin]

'A fire will destroy Schiedam, for the iniquity of this town is ripe and the hour of the harvest is here. I cannot, alas! disarm the resentment of the Just One. . . I know, my dear sister, that you have in reserve a certain number of planks which were left over in the construction of the house they built for you. Give the order for them to be transferred without delay to the garden here. We will use them to build a shed wherein the homeless may deposit the things they have saved from destruction.'

St. Lydwine of Schiedam

[Shin]

'The errors of others should serve to keep us from adding any of our own to them.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'Never neglect prayer. Be strong and constant. Courage! God wishes to make a saint of you. May Jesus bless you!'

St. Paul of the Cross

[Shin]

'The first step in the practice of the virtues is faith in Christ; its consummation, the love of Christ.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

[Shin]

'If you do not want to suffer evil, do not inflict it, since the suffering of it inevitably follows its infliction. "For whatever a man sows he will also reap" (Gal. 6:7).'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'Persons who live in the world should persevere in coming to church to hear sermons, and remember to read spiritual books, especially the Lives of the Saints.'

St. Philip Neri

[Shin]

'Behold thy lofty origin, and bethink thee of the due of love thou owest thy Creator. "Let Us make man," said God, "to Our Image and Likeness" (Gen. i. 26). If thou awakest not at this word, O my soul; if thou art not all aflame with love of Him for His so ineffable graciousness of condescension towards thee; if thine inmost marrow burns not with longings after Him, what shall I say? Asleep shall I call thee? Or must I rather think thee dead?'

St. Anselm of Canterbury

[Shin]

'During life despise that which will avail you nothing at the hour of death.'

St. Anselm of Canterbury

[Shin]

'God gives each one of us sufficient grace ever to know His holy will, and to do it fully.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'The choice of a state of life decides whether our conduct shall be good or bad.'

St. Gregory Nazianzus

[Shin]

'He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'

John 1:10-13

[Shin]

'My heart now experiences such a thirst that a river would not suffice to satisfy it; an ocean is needed to quench this thirst, but it is an ocean of fire and love that I wish to consume.'

St. Paul of the Cross