- Our life is full of brokenness; broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God’s faithful presence in our lives?
-- FATHER HENRI J. M. NOUWEN
- Christ is a divine judge with a human heart, a judge who wants to give life.
-- POPE JOHN PAUL II
- Gaze upon Christ, Consider him, Contemplate him and desire to imitate him.
-- ST. CLARE OF ASSISSI, to her nuns
- In Christ we are all things, He is everything to us. If you have wounds to heal, He is a physician; if fever scorches you, He is a fountain. Would you punish evil doing, He is justice. If you need help, He is strength; if you fear death, He is life; if you hunger, He is food.
--ST. AMBROSE
- What the soul is in a body, this the Christians are in the world.
-- DIOGNETUS, early Christian philosopher
- Seeing makes us knowledgeable, but contemplation makes us wise.
-- BALTASAR GRACIAN
- True contentment is a real, even an active, virtue -- not only affirmative but creative. It is the power of getting out of any situation all there is in it.
--G. K. CHESTERTON
- He who wants to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come into conflict with it.
-- BLESSED TITUS BRANDSMA
- If things created are so full of loveliness, how resplendent with beauty must be the One who made them!
--ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA
- Let us remember that the life in which we ought to be interested is daily life. We can, each of us, call only the present time our own.
-- ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA
- My life and death are not purely and simply my own business. I live by and for others, and my death involves others.
--FATHER THOMAS MERTON, American Trappist monk
- In God alone is there primordial and true delight, and in all our delights it is this delight that we are seeking.
--ST. BONAVENTURE
- It is never too late to begin. It is never too late to turn over a new leaf. In spite of the atom bomb, the jet plane, the conflict with Russia, ten just people may still save a city.
-- DOROTHY DAY
- And in every disappointment, great or small, let your heart fly directly to your dear Savior, throwing yourself in those arms for refuge against every pain and sorrow. Jesus will never leave you or forsake you.
-- ST. ELIZABETH SETON
- Do something good for someone you like least today.
--ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA
- Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.
-- POPE PAUL VI
- The light of faith makes us see what we believe.
-- ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
- ...the family is the particular and, at the same time, fundamental community of love and life on which all other communities and societies are based ...
-- POPE JOHN PAUL II
- When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
-- ST. JOHN MARY VIANNEY
- When conscience commands anything, there is only one thing to fear, and that is fear.
-- ST. TERESA OF ÁVILA
- No man hates God without first hating himself.
-- BISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN
- Doing little things with a strong desire to please God makes them great.
-- ST. FRANCIS DE SALES
- Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.
-- ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISSI
- Our highest happiness consists in the feeling that another's good is purchased by our sacrifice.
--BISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN
- God's gaze, His ravishing smile. This is my heaven.
-- ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX
- The gate of Heaven is very low; only the humble can enter it.
--ST. ELIZABETH SETON
- Holiness is not a luxury for the few; it is not just for some people. It is meant for you and for me and for all of us. It is a simple duty, because if we learn to love, we learn to be holy.
--MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
- The humble realize that of themselves they are nothing, and that they stand in extreme need of help and grace of heaven; but the proud are convinced that they are full of grace and virtue. That is why God takes pleasure in showering His gifts on the former and in depriving the latter of His bounty.
--ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
- To me, Jesus is the Life I want to live, the Light I want to reflect, the Way to the Father, the Love I want to express, the Joy I want to share, the Peace I want to sow around me. Jesus is everything to me.
-- MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
- Lay persons have a right and a duty to be apostles.
-- BISHOP TERRENCE PRENDERGAST, S.J., Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto, Canada
- Holiness is not limited to the sanctuary or to moments of private prayer; it is a call to direct our whole heart and life toward God and according to God's plan for this world. For the laity holiness is achieved in the midst of the world, in family, in community, in friendships, in work, in leisure, in citizenship. Through their competency and by their activity, lay men and women have the vocation to bring the fight of the Gospel to economic affairs, 'so that the world may be filled with the Spirit of Christ and may more effectively attain its destiny in justice, in love, and in peace.
-- U.S. CATHOLIC BISHOPS (in Economic Justice for All: A Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy, 1986, #332)
- During Lent, penance should be not only inward and individual, but also outward and social.
-- CONSTITUTION ON THE SACRED LITURGY (Sacrosanctum Concilium), 10; Second Vatican Council document
- Where there is no love, pour love in, and you will pull love out.
-- ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
- Do small things with great love.
--MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
- The way to love everything is to realize it might be lost.
--G. K. CHESTERTON
- Out of gratitude and love for Jesus, we should desire to be reckoned fools. Laugh and grow strong.
--ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, founder of the Jesuit Order
- The future will be different if we make the present different.
-– PETER MAURIN, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, USA
- Martyrs create faith, faith does not create martyrs.
--MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO
- Do not desire crosses, unless you have borne well those laid on you; it is an abuse to long after martyrdom while unable to bear an insult patiently.
--ST. FRANCIS DE SALES
- Whoever does not wish to have Mary Immaculate as his Mother will not have Christ as his Brother either...
-- ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE
- Through Mary, we come to her Son more easily.
-- POPE JOHN PAUL II
- It is never true to say that we have no time to meditate; the less one thinks of God, the less time there will always be for God.... For it does not require much time to make us saints; it requires only much love.
--BISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN
- Melancholy is the poison of devotion. When one is in tribulation, it is necessary to be more happy and more joyful because one is nearer to God.
-- ST. CLARE OF ASSISSI
- Unless we learn the meaning of mercy by exercising it towards others, we will never have any real knowledge of what it means to love Christ.
--FATHER THOMAS MERTON, American Trappist monk
- Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy.
-- FATHER THOMAS MERTON, in No Man Is An Island
- Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the Promised Land. She prepares a world she will not see.
--POPE PAUL VI
- We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reasons for thinking so, but there can be no doubt about whether or not we love our neighbor.
-- ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX
- I want to follow the life of poverty of our most high Lord Jesus Christ and of His Holy Mother.
-- ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISSI
- When we pray, the voice of the heart must be heard more than the proceedings from the mouth.
--ST. BONAVENTURE
- The more we pray, the more we wish to pray.
-- ST. JOHN MARY VIANNEY
- Everything begins with prayer, spending a little time on our knees ... If all the world's rulers and leaders would spend a little time on their knees before God, I believe we would have a better world.
--MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
- To pray, I think, does not primarily mean to think about God in contrast to thinking about other things, or to spend time with God instead of spending time with other people. Rather, it means to think and live in the presence of God.
--FATHER HENRI J. M. NOUWEN
- We must pray literally without ceasing -- without ceasing; in every occurrence and employment of our lives.
--ST. ELIZABETH SETON
- Other sins find their vent in the accomplishment of evil deeds, whereas pride lies in wait for good deeds, to destroy them.
--ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
- It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
-– G. K. CHESTERTON
- Never will anyone who says his Rosary every day become a formal heretic or be led astray by the devil.
-- ST. LOUIS DE MONTFORT
- When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you. When you look at the Sacred Host, you understand how much Jesus loves you now.
--MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA
- I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifices to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul.
-- ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX
- Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender.
-- FATHER THOMAS MERTON, Trappist monk
- Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon God in yourself.
-- ST. TERESA OF ÁVILA
- Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
-- ST. THOMAS MORE
- Just because something is impossible doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
-- DOROTHY DAY
- One good woman can conquer a city.
-- ST. FRANCIS DE SALES
- One must be very careful of words.
-- THOMAS MERTON
- God commands you to pray, but forbids you to worry.
-- ST. JOHN MARY VIANNEY
- Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
-- Saint Francis of Assisi
- We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.
-- Sir Francis Bacon
- The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
-- William Blake
- Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith.
-- Adel Bestavros
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