Quote for the Day

[Shin]

'Blessed the one who is fired by the fear of God, ever having in himself the fervour of the Holy Spirit, and who has burned up the thorns and thistles of the thoughts.'

St. Ephrem of Syria

[Shin]

'I once heard a spiritual man say that he was not so much astonished at the things done by a soul in mortal sin as at the things not done by it. May God, in his mercy, deliver us from such great evil, for there is nothing in the whole of our lives that so thoroughly deserves to be called evil as this, since it brings endless and eternal evils in its train.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

[Shin]

'If poor judgment is harmful to everyone, it is particularly so to those who live with great strictness.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'Those who hold that for them there is no difference between right and wrong force a few passages of Scripture and think they favour their own immoral opinions. In particular they quote the saying: "Sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law but under grace," and others of this sort, which there is no reason to add, for I am not proposing to fit out a pirate ship. Let us then briefly put a stop to their argument. The noble apostle himself refutes the charge against him implied in their false exegesis by the words with which he continues after the saying just quoted: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid." In this inspired and prophetic way he at once destroys the device of these licentious sophists.'

St. Clement of Alexandria

[Shin]

'Do not argue with people not under obedience to you when they oppose the truth; otherwise you may arouse their hatred.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'The pure intellect is occupied either with passion-free conceptual images of human affairs, or with the natural contemplation of things visible or invisible, or with the light of the Holy Trinity.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'It is much better to obtain only an ounce of happiness in not risking our salvation, than one hundred pounds in hazarding it.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

[Shin]

'He who is ignorant of the enemy's ambush is easily slain; and he who does not know the causes of the passions is soon brought low.'

St. Mark the Ascetic

[Shin]

'He who drives out self-love, the mother of the passions, will with God's help easily rid himself of the rest, such as anger, irritation, rancor and so on. But he who is dominated by self-love is overpowered by the other passions, even against his will. Self-love is the passion of attachment to the body.'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.'

John 14:25-26

[Shin]

'The rewards for the toils of virtue are dispassion and spiritual knowledge. For these are mediators of the kingdom of heaven, just as passions and ignorance are mediators of eternal punishment. It is because of this that he who seeks these rewards for the sake of human glory and not for their intrinsic goodness is rebuked by the words of Scripture, "You ask, and do not receive, because you ask wrongly." (Jas. 4:3)'

St. Maximos the Confessor

[Shin]

'If a monk can overcome two things, he can become free from the world. Bodily ease and vain-glory.'

St. Poemen

[Shin]

'In God's Name! The soldiers will fight, and God will give the victory.'

St. Joan of Arc

[Shin]

'Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honour dwelleth.'

Psalm 26:8

[Shin]

'Long-suffering and readiness to forgive curb anger; love and compassion wither it.'

St. Thalassios the Libyan

[Shin]

'I thank God for having preserved me in the integrity of faith in the midst of an age that has brought forth so many heresies and scandalous opinions, and for the grace of never having held any opinion contrary to that of the Church. By a special protection of God, notwithstanding the many dangerous occasions wherein I might have been turned from the right path, I have always been on the side of truth.'

St. Vincent de Paul