The Saints of the Saints

'This has been the one chief and dearest endeavor of all saints, to desire with their whole heart to endure every toil, all contempt, every pain, in order to please God, and thus to please that divine heart, which so much deserves to be loved, and loves us so much.'

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

'Blessed the one who honours the Saints and loves his neighbour and has banished envy from his own soul; envy through which Cain became his brothers' murderer.'

'Blessed the one who has not been worsted by the passion of despondency like a coward, but has found perfect endurance, by which all the Saints received their crowns.'

St. Ephrem of Syria

'Often make acts of love of our Lady, the saints, and the holy angels. Make friends with them. Talk with them frequently, using words of praise and tenderness. When you have gained familiar access to the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem above, you will grieve far less at bidding farewell to those of the mean city here below.'

St. Francis de Sales

'In your last letter to me you said that you would like to be spiritually united with me in my prayers. Well, I am very happy with that suggestion and so from now on you can accept me as a partner, not only in the general sense of the Communion of Saints, but even more especially in all acts of virtue, prayer and so forth. I would like to have the same arrangement with Countess Landi. Still, I am sorry that you entrust yourself to such a miserable sinner as I . . . enough said . . . even though each morning, particularly in the holy Mass, I keep you in mind and I pray wholeheartedly that the Lord will grant you the virtue of holy perseverance so that you will attain salvation.'

St. Gaspar del Bufalo

'To those who wish to stand in God's grace, neither the guardianship of saints nor the defenses of angels are wanting.'

St. Hilary of Poitiers

'A crooked and rough trunk of a tree, if it could think, would never believe that it could become a statue, a master-piece of sculpture: it would not wish to place itself under the chisel of any one who, by his art, sees well what he could make of it. Thus many people, hardly living as Christians, are far from imagining that they could become great Saints, if they allowed the grace of God to act in them and not resist its influence.'

St. Ignatius of Loyola

'In all your acts, in all your works, in all your behavior, imitate the good; be a competitor of the saints, keep your eye on the heroism of the martyrs, follow the example of the just. It is my wish that the life and teachings of the saints be for you an encouragement to virtue.'

'Seek the good, desire their company. Look for the company of the saints. If you will share their way of acting, you will share their virtue. If you walk with wise men, you will be wise; if you walk with idiots, you will be an idiot, for persons seek those of similar stripe.'

'It is dangerous to live among bad persons; it is harmful to be surrounded by those with perverse wills. You will feed yourself on their infamy if you associate with the undignified. It is better to suffer the hatred of evil persons than their company. Analogously, just as much good comes from the lives of the saints, much evil comes from the lives of bad persons, for those who touch what is filthy become contaminated.'

St. Isidore of Seville

'Think how many saints there are in heaven who see their fathers, mothers, brothers, and other relatives in the damnation of hell, which is the misfortune of misfortunes and the height of all woes; and notwithstanding they adore, they love, they bless with joy and happiness that most just will because they see such a decree of divine justice concerning these relatives.'

St. Jean Eudes

'We must never lose sight of the fact that we are either saints or outcasts, that we must love for Heaven or for Hell; there is no middle path in this.'

'That great saint, St. Charles Borromeo, had in his apartment a fine cardinal's bed, which everybody saw; but, besides that, there was one which nobody could see, made of bundles of wood; and that was the one he made use of. He never warmed himself; when people came to see him, they remarked that he placed himself so as not to feel the fire. That is what the saints were like. They lived for heaven and not for earth: they were all heavenly; and as for us, we are all earthly.'

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars

'The man who despairs of himself when he hears of the supernatural virtues of the saints is most unreasonable. On the contrary, they supremely teach you one of two things: Either they rouse you to emulation by their holy courage, or they lead you by way of thrice-holy humility to deep self-contempt and realization of your inherent weakness.'

St. John Climacus

'The example of the saints is proposed to every one, so that the great actions shown us may encourage us to undertake smaller things.'

Ven. Louis de Granada

'The great heart of the child Mary is, after the Heart of Jesus, the holiest of all hearts; it has loved, and it loves God more than the whole court of heaven, more than all the angels and saints, past, present, and to come. Desire, then, to love God like the heart of this sublime child, and to this end place yourself in this beautiful heart, and love God through it, with the intention of practising all the virtues of which it has given us the example.'

St. Paul of the Cross

'Let a man frequent the holy Sacraments, go to sermons, and be often reading the Lives of Saints.'

'To get good from reading the Lives of the Saints, and other spiritual books, we ought not to read out of curiosity, or skimmingly, but with pauses; and when we feel ourselves warmed, we ought not to pass on, but to stop and follow up the spirit which is stirring in us, and when we feel it no longer then to pursue our reading.'

'The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.'

St. Philip Neri

'If, we be not in fault, God will assuredly, by his all-powerful aid, enable us to become saints.'

St. Teresa of Jesus

'The greater the charity of the saints, in their heavenly home, the more they intercede for those who are still on their journey and the more they can help them by their prayers; the more they are united with God, the more effective those prayers are. This is in accordance with divine order, which makes higher things react upon lower things, like the brightnees of the sun filling the atmosphere.'

'In recalling to mind the life and actions of the saints, walk in their footsteps as much as possible, and humble thyself if thou canst not attain to their perfection.'

St. Thomas Aquinas

'My lord, for one bishop of your opinion, I have a hundred saints of mine; for one parliament of yours, and God knows of what kind, I have all the General Councils of the Church for a thousand years.'

St. Thomas More

'Humility is the virtue of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of His blessed Mother, and of the greatest saints. It embraces all virtues and, where it is sincere, introduces them into the soul.'

St. Vincent de Paul

'Brothers, we must follow such examples. For it is written: Follow the saints, because those who follow them will become saints.'

Pope St. Clement I of Rome

'Beside all this, a more wonderful grace is bestowed upon the Saints in heaven: for they know not only them with whom they were acquainted in this world, but also those whom before they never saw, and converse with them in such familiar sort as though in times past they had seen and known one another: and therefore when they shall see the ancient fathers in that place of perpetual bliss, they shall then know them by sight, whom always they knew in their lives and conversation. For seeing they do in that place with unspeakable brightness, common to all, behold God, what is there that they know not, that know him who knoweth all things?'

Pope St. Gregory the Great

'For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work, and the love which you have shewn in his name, you who have ministered, and do minister to the saints.'

Hebrews 6:10

'In between these resplendent lilies her Son placed seven precious gems. The first gem is her outstanding virtuousness, for there exists no virtue in any other spirit or in any other body, which she does not possess more excellently. The second gem is her perfect purity, for the Queen of Heaven was so pure that not a single stain of sin was ever to be found in her from the beginning when she first entered the world up to the final day of her death. Not all the devils together could find enough impurity in her to fit on the head of a pin. She was truly pure, for it was not fitting for the King of glory to lie in any but the purest, cleanest, and most select vessel among angels and men. The third gem was her beauty, for God is praised constantly by his saints for the beauty of his Mother. Her beauty completes the joy of the holy angels and of all holy souls. The fourth precious gem in the crown is the Virgin Mothers' wisdom, for she was filled with all divine wisdom in God and through her all wisdom is completed and perfected. The fifth gem is power, for she is so powerful before God that she can crush anything that has been created or made. The sixth gem is her shining clarity, for she shines so clear that she even sheds light on the angels, whose eyes shine more clearly than light, and the demons do not dare to look upon her shining clarity. The seventh gem is the fullness of every delight and spiritual sweetness, since her fullness is such that there is no joy that she does not add to, no delight that is not made fuller and more perfect through her and through the blessed vision of her, for she is filled and replete with grace beyond all the saints. She is the pure vessel in which lay the bread of angels and in which all sweetness and beauty is found. Her Son placed these seven gems in between the seven lilies in her crown. Wherefore, bride of her Son, honor and praise her with all your heart, for she is truly worthy of all praise and honor!'

St. John the Baptist to St. Bridget of Sweden in a vision, describing the Blessed Virgin Mary