"Fear not, beloved, you are safe; take courage and be strong."
~ Angel to the prophet Daniel (Dan 10:19) ~
"...let your hearts demand the infinite...Every moment the will of God is stretched out before us like a vast ocean which the desires of our hearts can never empty, but more and more of it will be ours as our souls grow in faith, in trust and in love...the will of God alone can satisfy us."
~ Jean-Pierre De Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence ~
"What God wants of you...is that you should live each day as it comes, like a bird in the trees, without worrying about tomorrow. Be at peace and trust in divine providence and the Blessed Virgin, and do not seek anything else but to please God and love Him."
~ St. Louis-Marie De Montfort ~
“May you experience a look like that! May you experience the truth that he, Christ, looks upon you with love!”
~ Blessed Pope John Paul II, Letter to Young People, No. 7 ~
"Christ made my soul beautiful with the jewels of grace and virtue. I belong to Him whom the angels serve."
~ St. Agnes ~
"In the countenance of Jesus, the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15) and the reflection of the Father's glory (cf. Heb 1:3), we glimpse the depths of an eternal and infinite love which is at the very root of our being. Those who let themselves be seized by this love cannot help abandoning everything to follow Him..."
~ Bl. JPII, Vita Consecrata ~
"I do not pray to be successful, I pray to be faithful."
~ Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta ~
"If the devil reminds you of your past, just remind him of his future."
"If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards."
~ Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman ~
"Some people say I am a woman of great faith. I'm really a coward who keeps moving forward."
~ Mother Angelica ~
"Bring me my 'weapon'!" (The Rosary)
~ St. Padre Pio ~
"There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future."
~ St. Augustine ~
"The experience of this gracious love of God is so deep and so powerful that the person called senses the need to respond by unconditionally dedicating his or her life to God, consecrating to him all things present and future, and placing them in his hands."
~ Bl. JPII, Vita Consecrata ~
"All that is gold does not glitter; not all that wander are lost."
~ JRR Tolkien ~
"Once you choose hope, anything is possible."
~ Christopher Reeve ~
"Our best plan is to place ourselves in the Lord's presence, meditate upon His mercy and grace and upon our lowliness, and leave Him to give us what He wills...He knows best what is good for us."
~ Saint Teresa of Ávila ~
"Praying before the Blessed Sacrament is like praying twice, or three times. It's like prayer concentrate!"
~ Fr. Will ~
"Our vocation is...His 'best-case scenario' for us. He makes the invitation, He sends us His messengers, He makes sure we have the opportunity to hear the call... It even seems that most times there is ample room for doubt as regards our vocation...[but] He never forces it on us. He attracts us. He gives us the chance to show our love in trust and generosity. And there is no big stick."
~ Fr. Anthony ~
"Those whose hearts are pure are temples of the Holy Spirit."
~ St. Lucy ~
"You should not worry too much about adversities. The world is not as powerful as it seems to be; its strength is strictly limited.. Know, my daughter, that if your soul is filled with the fire of My pure love, then all difficulties dissipate like fog before the sun's rays and dare not touch the soul. All adversaries are afraid to start a quarrel with such a soul, because they sense that it is stronger than the whole world..."
~ Jesus to St. Faustina, 1643 ~
"You will be consoled according to the greatness of your sorrow and affliction; the greater the suffering, the greater will be the reward."
~ St. Mary Magdalen de'Pazzi ~
"If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity."
~ St. Ignatius of Loyola ~
"Believe the impossible and you can do the incredible. Or believe the incredible and you can do the impossible. Believe the things, that are almost, impossible. And if you got faith, it will come true."
~ Archbishop Fulton J Sheen ~
"Do not be afraid of seeming different and being criticized for what might seem to be losing or out of fashion; your peers but adults too, especially those who seem more distant from the mindset and values of the Gospel, are crying out to see someone who dares to live according to the fullness of humanity revealed by Jesus Christ."
~ Pope Benedict XVI ~
"Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing away; God alone is unchanging. Patience obtains everything. God alone suffices."
~ St. Teresa of Ávila ~
"O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests; for your unfaithful and tepid priests; for your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields. For your tempted priests; for your lonely and desolate priests; for your young priests; for your dying priests; for the souls of your priests in Purgatory. But above all, I recommend to you the priests dearest to me: the priest who baptized me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way (especially …).O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart,band bless them abundantly in time and in eternity.Amen
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux † ~
"Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
~ St. Francis of Assisi ~
"God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination."
~ St. Augustine ~
"...the consecrated life is not something isolated and marginal, but a reality which affects the whole Church...In effect, the consecrated life is at the very heart of the Church as a decisive element for her mission, since it "manifests the inner nature of the Christian calling" and the striving of the whole Church as Bride towards union with her one Spouse..."
~ Bl. JPII, Vita Consecrata ~
"Thérèse is also a contemplative. In the hiddenness of her Carmel she lived the great adventure of Christian experience to the point of knowing the breadth, length, height and depth of Christ's love (cf. Eph 3:18-19)...By her life Thérèse offers a witness and theological illustration of the beauty of the contemplative life as the total dedication to Christ, Spouse of the Church...Hers is a hidden life which possesses a mysterious fruitfulness for spreading the Gospel and fills the Church and the world with the sweet odor of Christ. (cf. LT 169 2v)
~ Bl. JPII (Divini Amoris Scientia: The Science of Divine Love) ~
"The glory of God is the glory of people fully alive."
~ St. Iranaeus ~
“Prayer is helplessness casting itself on Power, infirmity leaning on Strength, misery reaching to Mercy, and a prisoner clamoring for Relief.”
~ Archbishop Fulton J Sheen ~
"Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns away from them to humble souls."
~ Jesus to St. Faustina, 1602 ~
"Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most."
~ St. Jerome ~
“The very things that held you down are going to carry you up..."
~ Timothy Q. Mouse (Dumbo) ~
"Light up the darkness"
~ I am Legend ~
"The Love of Him, Who loved us much, is much to be loved."
~ St. Francis of Assisi ~
"My God, it grieves me greatly that you are not known, that in this savage wilderness all have not been converted to you, that sin has not been driven from it. My God, even if all the brutal tortures which prisoners in this region must endure should fall on me, I offer myself most willingly to them and I alone shall suffer them all."
~ St. John de Brebeuf ~
"[God] has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman."
~ Blessed Pope John Paul II ~
"One cannot desire freedom apart from the Cross when one is especially chosen for the Cross."
~ St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross ~
“When a soul tries its best to be united to God and on the other hand finds no peace in the tasks and in the place where it is, it is a sign that His Divine Majesty desires something else of it.”
~ St. Paul of the Cross ~
"Believe me, to live happily in this pilgrimage; we have to aim at the hope of arriving at our Homeland, where we will stay eternally. Meanwhile we have to believe firmly that God calls us to Himself and follows us along the path towards Him. He will never permit anything to happen to us that is not for our greater good. He knows who we are and He will hold out His paternal hand to us during difficulties, so that nothing prevents us from running to Him swiftly. But to enjoy this grace we must have complete trust in Him."
~ St. Padre Pio ~
"No one can live continually in sin and continue to say the Rosary: either they will give up sin or they will give up the Rosary."
~ Bishop Hugh Doyle ~
“Confidently open your most intimate aspirations to the love of Christ who waits for you in the Eucharist. You will receive the answer to all your worries and you will see with joy that the consistency of your life which he asks of you is the door to fulfill the noblest dreams of your youth.”
~ Blessed Pope John Paul II ~
"Jesus Christ said, "This is My Body." You say, "No, It is not His Body!" Who am I to believe? I prefer to believe Jesus Christ."
~ St. Dominic Barberi ~
"I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government; or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed."
~ President George Washington, March 15, 1970, Letter to Roman Catholics ~
"I am not capable of doing big things, but I want to do everything, even the smallest things, for the greater glory of God."
~ St. Dominic Savio ~
"My daughter, just as you prepare in My presence, so also you make your confession before Me. The person of the priest is, for Me, only a screen. Never analyse what sort of a priest it is that I am making use of; open your soul in confession as you would to Me, and I will fill it with My light."
~ Jesus to St. Faustina, 1725 ~
"I trust that as He shall further open the way, I will be ready to walk therein, relying on His help and trusting in His goodness and wisdom."
~ Abraham Lincoln ~
"If we ever forget we are one Nation under God, then we will be a Nation gone under."
~ Ronald Reagan ~
"Though our feelings come and go, God's love for us does not."
~ C.S. Lewis ~
" 'I thirst,' Jesus said on the cross when Jesus was deprived of every consolation, dying in absolute Poverty, left alone, despised and broken in body and soul. He spoke of His thirst—not for water—but for love, for sacrifice. Jesus is God: therefore, His love, His thirst is infinite. Our aim is to quench this infinite thirst of a God made man.”
~ Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta ~
"Free your mind from all that troubles you; God will take care of things. You will be unable to make haste in this (choice) without, so to speak, grieving the heart of God, because he sees that you do not honor him sufficiently with holy trust. Trust in him, I beg you, and you will have the fulfillment of what your heart desires."
~ St. Vincent de Paul ~
"Don't measure your love of our Lord by the depth of your feelings; this is truly a small measure. Abandon yourself into His hands with confidence; your love will increase more and more, but you will not notice it, and that does not matter."
~ St. Francois-Marie-Jacob Libermann ~
"All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you."
~ Gandalf ~
"Don’t give up! I believe in you all! A person’s a person, no matter how small!"
~ Dr. Suess (Horton Hears a Who) ~
"Never take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway."
~ Anonymous ~
"Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly."
~ G.K. Chesterton ~
"Even amid the “busy-ness” and the stress of our daily lives, we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God, and in silence that we discover our true self. And in discovering our true self, we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his Church and the redemption of our world."
~ Pope Benedict XVI, Address to young people, 2010 Visit to UK ~
"Love God, serve God. Everything is in that."
~ St. Clare ~
"God is Beauty."
~ St. Francis of Assisi ~
"You must believe in mercy to the point of believing that you are a joy for Jesus...The life of the Christian is a life of love. Can people love one another without knowing that they are a joy for each other?"
~ Fr. Jean C.J. d'Elbee, "I Believe in Love" ~
"If we could, with a single interior glance, see all the goodness and mercy that exists in God's designs for each one of us, even in what we call disgraces, pains and afflictions, our happiness would consist in throwing ourselves into the arms of the Divine Will, with the abandon of a young child that throws himself into the arms of his mother."
~ Blessed Marie of the Incarnation ~
"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us."
~ St. Augustine ~
"At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger...Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation...anyone who succeeds in attaining the Truth, has burned with such a Love."
~ St. Gregory the Great, Pope ~ Homily on St. Mary Magdalene
"My child, know that the greatest obstacles to holiness are discouragement and an exaggerated anxiety. These will deprive you of the ability to practice virtue. All temptations united together ought not disturb your interior peace, not even momentarily. Sensitiveness and discouragement are the fruits of self-love. Have confidence, My child. Do not lose heart in coming for pardon, for I am always ready to forgive you. As often as you beg for it, you glorify My mercy."
~ Jesus to St. Faustina, 1488 ~
"He died in body through a love greater than anyone had known. She died in spirit through a love unlike any other since His."
~ St. Bernard - On the Martyrdom of Mary ~
"Stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away."
~ Songs 8:6 ~
"Never does our suffering make Him happy, but it is necessary for us, and so He sends it to us, while, as it were, turning away His face.... I assure you that it costs Him dearly to fill us with bitterness. The good God, who so loves us, has pain enough in being obliged to leave us on earth to fulfill our time of trial, without our constantly telling Him of our discomfort; we must appear not to notice it...Far from complaining to Our Lord of the cross which He sends us, I cannot fathom the infinite love which has led Him to treat us this way...What a favor from Jesus, and how He must love us to send us so great a sorrow! Eternity will not be long enough to bless Him for it."
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux ~
"Prayer is a cry of gratitude and love, in the midst of trial as well as in joy."
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux ~
"Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven."
~ Saint Rose of Lima ~
"Yes, I love the cross, the cross alone. I love it because I always see it behind Jesus' shoulders."
~ St. Padre Pio
"True freedom consists in not being attached to anything. It is in this detachment that God seeks your soul in order to work His great marvels."
~ St. Juan De Bonilla ~
"God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission...I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught...Therefore I will trust Him...If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me -- still He knows what He is about."
~ Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman ~
"Never...turn away when someone needs your love."
~ St. Benedict ~
"Peace is born of humility...If we knew ourselves well, rather than being flabbergasted to find ourselves on the ground, we would wonder how we manage to remain standing."
~ St. Francis De Sales ~
"The Heart of our Divine Master is filled with sweetness, humility and charity. Often place your confidence in Divine Providence, and be assured that heaven and earth shall pass away sooner than the Lord would neglect to protect you."
~ St. Padre Pio ~
"My virtues are nothing; they are not what give me unlimited confidence that I feel in my heart. They are, to tell the truth, the spiritual riches that render one unjust, when one rests in them with complacence and when one believes they are something great...Ah! I really feel that it is not this at all that pleases God in my little soul; what pleases Him is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy...That is my only treasure..."
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux ~
"Go forth without fear. For He who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you..."
~ St. Clare ~
"If God seems slow in responding, it is because He is preparing a better gift. He will not deny us. God withholds what you are not yet ready for. He wants you to have a lively desire for His greatest gifts. All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart."
~ St. Augustine ~
"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and possess. You have given all to me. To You, O Lord, I return it. All is Yours, dispose of it entirely according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace and I will be rich enough and desire nothing more."
~ St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises ~
"The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"
~ St. Maximilian Kolbe ~
“I make this personal appeal: I ask you to open your hearts generously to Him; do not delay your response. The Lord will help you to know His Will; He will help you to follow your vocation courageously.”
~ Blessed Pope John Paul II ~
"See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are...God is love...There is no fear in love...We love, because He first loved us..."
~ 1 John 3, 4:16,19 ~
"This is what I want. This is what I seek. This is what I long to do with all my heart."
~ St. Francis of Assisi ~
"When grace fires our hearts, it stirs up in them a true thirst for suffering...to show...to what extent we love Our Heavenly Father...for it is only through suffering that we learn how to love... In suffering and persecution we... reach a high degree of sanctity and, at the same time...bring our persecutors to God"
~ St. Maximilian Kolbe ~
"If God created shadows it was to better emphasize the light."
~ Blessed Pope John XXIII ~
"Holiness is not perfection according to human criteria; it is not reserved for a small number of exceptional persons. It is for everyone; it is the Lord who brings us to holiness, when we are willing to collaborate in the salvation of the world for the glory of God, despite our sin and our sometimes rebellious temperament."
~ Blessed Pope John Paul II ~ (at the beatification of St. Damien of Molokai)
"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities."
~ Dr. Seuss ~
"It is unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly."
~ Blessed JPII ~
"And many a man with life out of tune, And battered and scarred with sin, Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, Much like the old violin...But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd, Never can quite understand. The worth of a soul, and the change that's wrought, By the touch of the Master's hand."
"I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love."
~ Blessed Mother Teresa ~
"Do not surrender your confidence; it will have great reward. You need patience to do God's will and receive what He has promised."
~ Hebrews 10:35-36 ~
"Young men and women of America, I urge you: open your hearts to the Lord’s call to follow him in the priesthood and the religious life. Can there be any greater mark of love than this: to follow in the footsteps of Christ, who was willing to lay down his life for his friends?"
~ Pope Benedict XVI ~
"One cannot love without suffering. He [Jesus] showed us this very clearly upon the cross, where He was consumed for love of us. And it is still the same every day in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar... Since love makes lovers one in likeness, if we love, let us model our lives on His."
~ St. Margaret Mary Alacoque ~
"...understand that to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more suited one is for the workings of this consuming and transforming Love...but we must consent to remain always poor and without strength, and this is the difficulty...let us love our littleness, let us love to feel nothing, then we shall be poor in spirit, and Jesus will come to look for us and He will transform us in flames of love...It is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to love."
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux ~
"Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity."
~ Jesus to St. Faustina, Diary of St. Faustina, 699 ~
"In solitude He guides her, He alone,
Who also bears in solitude the wound of love."
~ St. John of the Cross ~
"In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced, the kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together. Here is for us the source of life. This heart is the heart of the Triune Divinity, and the center of all human hearts...This heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle where it remains mysteriously hidden in that still, white host."
~ St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) ~
"We are born to love, we live to love, and we will die to Love still more."
~ St. Joseph Cafasso ~
"You should not be discouraged...if there is in the soul a continual effort to improve, the Lord will finally reward you by suddenly making all the virtues blossom in you as in a garden full of flowers...Fear not, because God is with you...The longer the trial to which God subjects you, the greater the goodness in comforting you during the time of the trial and in the exaltation after the combat."
~ St. Padre Pio ~
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is."
~ Francis Bacon ~
"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked."
~ Bernard Meltzer ~
"Let us stir up our hearts, rekindle our faith, and long eagerly for what heaven has in store for us. To love thus is to be already on our way. No matter what obstacles we encounter, we must not allow them to turn us aside from the joy of that heavenly feast. Anyone who is determined to reach his destination, is not deterred by the roughness of the road that leads to it."
~ St. Gregory the Great, Pope ~
"Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34)."
~ Pope Benedict XVI ~ From his encyclical: Deus Caritas Est
"Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly."
~ Author Unknown ~
"I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life. I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You, than live without loving You. I love You, Lord and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally....My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath."
~ St. John Vianney ~
“Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”
~ Blessed Mother Teresa ~
"Pain is God's megaphone!"
~ Archbishop Fulton Sheen ~
"Just as the Israelites found the desert awaiting them on the far side of the Red Sea, so the Church, after the resurrection, always finds history filled with joy and hope, grief and anguish. And yet, this history is changed, it is marked by a new and eternal covenant, it is truly open to the future. For this reason, saved by hope, let us continue our pilgrimage, bearing in our hearts the song that is ancient and yet ever new: “Let us sing to the Lord: glorious His triumph!”"
~ Easter message of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, 2010 ~
"Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide."
~ Ronald Reagan ~
"That is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition of her survival, yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn."
~ Blessed Pope John Paul II, 1987 ~
"And now I say to you who are listening to me, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, and pray for those who treat you insultingly."
~ Luke 6:27-32 ~
"Do or do not, there is no try."
~ Yoda ~
"All I have is a voice, To undo the folded lie, And the lie of Authority, Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State, And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die."
~ W.H. Auden ~ 1939
"God made me to know Him. O! What a bles'd aim! To love Him and serve Him, Sure rests in the same. It's Heaven-begun, For the grateful, on Earth: - To treasure aright !-?-!- Highest Heaven its worth. (God Himself the reward even here)."
~ "The Rational Creature" by Fr. Solanus Casey, O.F.M. Cap. (1870-1957) ~
"The Lord’s gaze is at the heart of this very special encounter and the whole Christian experience. To be sure, Christianity is not primarily a moral code. It is an experience of Jesus Christ who loves each of us personally, young and old, poor and rich. He loves us even when we turn away from Him."
~ From our Holy Father's Message on the 25th anniversary of WYD ~
"Our wish, our object, our chief preoccupation must be to form Jesus in ourselves, to make his spirit, his devotion, his affections, his desires and his disposition live and reign there. All our religious exercises should be directed to this end. It is the work which God has given us to do unceasingly."
~ St. John Eudes ~
"...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
"Rouse we; let the blithesome cry
Of that bird our hearts awaken;
Chide the slumberers as they lie,
And arrest the sin-o'ertaken."
~ Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen ~
"If I did not simply suffer from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I look only at the present moment, forget the past; and I take good care not to forestall the future. When we yield to discouragement or despair, it is usually because we give too much thought to the past and to the future."
~St. Thérèse of Lisieux ~
"This is the meaning of the call to the consecrated life: it is an initiative coming wholly from the Father (cf. Jn 15:16), who asks those whom he has chosen to respond with complete and exclusive devotion. The experience of this gracious love of God is so deep and so powerful that the person called senses the need to respond by unconditionally dedicating his or her life to God, consecrating to him all things present and future, and placing them in his hands. This is why, with Saint Thomas, we come to understand the identity of the consecrated person, beginning with his or her complete self-offering, as being comparable to a genuine holocaust."
~ Bl. JPII, Vita Consecrata ~
"Dear friends, may no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness. The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, his name will continue to resound throughout the world."
~ Pope Benedict XVI (Message to WYD Pilgrims) ~
"...let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult, when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest. Oh stupendous dignity! O humble sublimity, that the Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that for our salvation he hides himself under an ordinary piece of bread."
~ St. Francis of Assisi ~
"Rejoice in the Lord always! I say it again. Rejoice! Everyone should see how unselfish you are. The Lord is near. Dismiss all anxiety from your minds. Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude. Then God’s own peace, which is beyond all understanding, will stand guard over your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus."
~ St. Paul (Phil 3) ~
"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me...you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."
~ Thomas Merton ~
"By the might of His glory you will be endowed with the strength needed to stand fast, even to endure joyfully whatever may come."
~ Colossians 1:11 ~
"But I wonder as well if once again our people — our young people — are telling us something: “We don’t like ‘Catholic-lite.’ Don’t pander to us! Call us to greatness! Call us to heroic virtue! Remind us that following Jesus calls for sacrifice, and that we long for ways to let ourselves, and the world, know that we are different. Don’t make things simple! Don’t cater to convenience!”
~ Archbishop Timothy Dolan ~
"The consecrated life thus becomes one of the tangible seals which the Trinity impresses upon history, so that people can sense with longing the attraction of divine beauty."
~ Bl. JPII, Vita Consecrata ~
"For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart."
~ Jeremiah 29:11-13 ~
"We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice, mercy, prudence, honesty -- these are Christian virtues. And obviously, in a diverse community, tolerance is an important working principle. But it's never an end in itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil."
~ Archbishop Chaput ~
"If you find your delight in the Lord, He will grant your heart's desire. Commit your life to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act...Be still before the Lord and wait in patience..."
~ Psalm 37 ~
"It is important in a highest way that the soul practice so much Love, so that, consuming self quickly, one does not stop entirely below but reaches solicitously to see face to face his God."
~ St. John of the Cross ~
"You duped me O Lord, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed...I say to myself, I will not mention him, I will speak his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it."
~ Jeremiah 20:7-9 ~
"God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to Him by love, the nearer we are to those who belong to Him."
~ St. Elizabeth Ann Seton ~
"Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus, with that breath of your Spirit; wound our souls with your love, so that the soul of each and every one of us may say in truth: Show me my soul's desire, for I am wounded by your love. These are the wounds I wish for, Lord. Blessed is the soul so wounded by love...the more a soul loves, the more it desires to love, and the greater its suffering, the greater its healing."
~ St. Columban ~
God's promises are like the stars; the darker the night the brighter they shine.
~ David Nicholas ~
"What do I desire? What do I want? Why do I speak? Why do I live, if not for this reason: that together WE might live with Christ....I do not want to be saved without you." ~St. Augustine of Hippo
"We must always say blessed be God."
~ St. Jeanne Jugan ~
"Raise up your heart after a fall, sweetly and gently, humbling yourself before God in the knowledge of your misery, and do not be astonished at your weakness, since it is not surprising that weakness should be weak, infirmity infirm, and frailty frail."
~ St. Francis de Sales ~
"Jesus is waiting for you in the Chapel. Go and find Him when your strength and patience are giving out, when you feel lonely and helpless. Say to Him: "You know well what is happening my dear Jesus. I have only You. Come to my aide..." And then go your way. And don't worry about knowing how you are going to manage. It is enough to have told Our good Lord. He has an excellent memory."
~ St. Jeanne Jugan ~
"Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you. Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity. Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection...Take up the sword of the Spirit. Let your heart be an altar...God desires not death, but faith...God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will."
~ St. Peter Chrysologus ~
"A heart speaks to a Heart...Lips speak only to ears."
~ St. Francis de Sales ~
"It is a challenging and uplifting invitation that Jesus addresses to those to whom he says: “Follow me!”. He invites them to become his friends, to listen attentively to his word and to live with him...“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit ” (Jn 12:24)."
~ Pope Benedict XVI ~
Someone once asked Blessed John Paul II why he loved the young so much. He replied: "Zaczyna przypominać firmy zachować!" Which means, "You begin to resemble the company you keep!"
"In God alone is my soul at rest; my help comes from Him. He alone is my rock, my stronghold, my fortress: I stand firm...Do not let your hearts be troubled, have faith in Me."
~ Psalm 62, John 14 ~
"The affectation of an elaborate hairdress, the wearing of golden jewelry, or the donning of rich robes is not for you. Your adornment is rather the hidden character of the heart, expressed in the unfading beauty of a calm and gentle disposition. This is precious in God's eyes." ~1 Peter 3:3-4 ~
"Thus says the LORD...: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you..."
~ 2 Kings 20:5 ~
"When God wounds the heart with an arrow of love, it acts like a flash or ray of special illumination...the soul becomes aware of His goodness and of the love which He bears...of the desire which He has to possess the love of that soul...And as an arrow remains fixed in the heart...so in the same way does God, when He wounds a soul with His love, come to remain forever united with that soul which He has wounded."
~ St. Alphonsus Liguori ~
"God loves you. If you are loved, what is there to be frightened of?"
~ Bl. JPII ~
"You shall be called by a new name, pronounced by the mouth of the Lord. You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem held by your God...For the Lord delights in you."
~ Isaiah 61 ~
"The Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy...He does not treat us according to our sins, nor repay according to our faults. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so strong is His love for those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our sins...the love of the Lord is everlasting."
~ Psalm 103 ~
"Rest not! Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die!" (Or in other words, Carpe Diem)
~ Goethe ~
"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me...I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you...Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid...I have said this to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
~ Jesus, John 14 ~
"I know this now. Every man gives his life for what he believes...Sometimes people believe in little or nothing, and yet they give their lives to that little or nothing. One life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it and then it's gone. But to surrender what you are and TO LIVE WITHOUT BELIEF IS MORE TERRIBLE THAN DYING - even more terrible than dying young."
~ St. Joan of Arc ~
"Throughout history, the great transformations and movements within the Church have always come from outside the expected channels. First man creates a problem, and then God, in his infinite wisdom, creates a solution. If the problems today are greater than ever before, then God will raise up saints greater than ever before...The Church needs saints, and the world needs saints..."
~ Matthew Kelly ~
"The Eternal Being...became not only a Man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a Woman’s body. The result of this was that you now...had one Man in whom the created life, derived from His Mother, allowed itself to be completely and perfectly turned into the begotten life...Thus in one instance humanity had, so to speak, arrived: had passed into the life of Christ."
~ C.S. Lewis ~
"Do the people around you know what your failures are? Do you reveal your humanity? Because when we reveal our humanity, we give other people permission to be human."
~ Matthew Kelly ~
"When Jesus comes again at the end of time, He will not have a single drop more glory than He has right now upon the altars and in the tabernacles of our churches. God dwells among mankind, RIGHT NOW, because the Mass is heaven on earth."
~ Scott Hahn, The Lamb's Supper ~
"Faith in Providence, in fact, does not dispense us from the exhausting struggle for a dignified life, but it frees us from anxiety about things and from the fear of tomorrow."
~ Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, Feb. 27, 2011 ~
"When we look at the cross we know how much Jesus loved us. When we look at the Tabernacle, we know how much Jesus loves us NOW." ~ Blessed Mother Theresa ~
Newscaster: "Did you bring us some ashes?"
Archbishop Timothy Dolan: "We don't do carryout."
"It is not the critic who counts...the man who points out how the strong man stumbles...The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who spends himself in a worthy cause...who...if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat."
~ Teddy Roosevelt ~
"Created to love and be loved, we feel a restlessness, a longing for more, a profound discontent with our lives and with our culture. Our hunger is not for appearances, but for something of substance. We are hungry for truth. The people of today are starving for the authentic, thirsting for the tiniest droplet of sincerity, aching to experience the genuine."
~ Matthew Kelly, Rediscovering Catholicism ~
"Whoever finds Jesus finds a rare treasure, indeed, a Good above every good. Whereas one who loses Him loses more than the whole world. The one who lives without Jesus is the poorest of the poor, whereas no one is so rich as the one who lives in His grace."
~ St. Thomas A Kempis ~
"If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and forever in the next."
~ St. Jerome Emiliani ~
"Stern as death is love, relentless as the nether world is devotion; its flames are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away."
~ Songs 8:6 ~
"A Rose of Red, Petals filled with Love, Unfold within my Heart, Planted by Him, Beloved."
“From on high He reached down and seized me; He drew me forth from the mighty waters. He snatched me from my powerful foe, from my enemies whose strength I could not match. They assailed me in the day of my misfortune, but the Lord was my support. He brought me forth into freedom, He saved me because He loved me."
~ Psalm 18:16-19 ~
♥ The Lord has saved me; He wanted me for His own. ♥
"Happiness is first of all a gift of God that is received by following the unexpected paths of God's will. These ways are demanding, but they are also a source of deep joy. Look at Mary: invited to take a surprising and disconcerting path, her willingness makes her enter a joy that all generations will sing."
~ Pope Benedict XVI ~
"It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you...yes, it is Christmas every time you smile at your brothers and sisters and offer them your hand."
~ Blessed Teresa of Calcutta ~
"The Creator of the heavens obeys a carpenter; the God of eternal glory listens to a poor virgin. Let the philosopher no longer disdain from listening to the common laborer; the wise, to the simple; the educated, to the illiterate; a child of a prince, to a mere peasant."
~ St. Anthony of Padua ~
"Daughter of Zion, exult; shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem! Your King is coming, the Holy One, the Savior of the world."
~ Zechariah 9:9 ~
“I hate to disappoint you, but in Jesus’ day, shepherds were considered to be the most deceitful scoundrels that nobody could trust..[and] the magi were..none other than practitioners in the black arts..It’s a very unusual thing, to see shepherds and magi as first in line to acknowledge their personal surrender to..Jesus Christ. What God has done, is stupendous. He has assured us, that nobodies count.”
~ Scott Hahn ~
♥ I have loved you with an everlasting Love ♥
~ Jeremiah 31:3 ~
"Don't waste your suffering!"
~ Bl. JPII ~
"Fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My victorious right hand."
~ Isaiah 41:10 ~
"Rouse yourself to cheerfulness in the Lord. Every trial will pass. When you find yourself disturbed, enter into the Heart of Jesus in spirit, into that great furnace of Love. Let that fire totally penetrate you and burn you with holy Love. Trust in Him."
~ St. Paul of the Cross ~
"Just as at sea those who are carried away from the direction of the harbor bring themselves back on course by a clear sign, such as a tall beacon light or a mountain peak coming into view, so Scripture may guide those adrift on the sea of life back into the harbor of the divine will."
~ St. Gregory of Nyssa ~
"Is Jesus perhaps repeating to some of you today: "There is one thing you lack"? Is he perhaps asking for even more love, more generosity, more sacrifice? Yes, the love of Christ involves generosity and sacrifice. To follow Christ and to serve the world in His name requires courage and strength. There is no place for selfishness - and no place for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice."
~ Bl. JPII ~
"I want to reaffirm strongly the eminently apostolic role of cloistered nuns. To leave th world to devote oneself in solitude to deeper and constant prayer is none other than a special way of being an apostle. It would be an error to consider cloistered nuns as creatures separated from their contemporaries, isolated and seemingly cut off from the world and the Church. Rather, they are present to them, and in a deeper way, with the same tenderness as that of Christ."
~ Bl. JPII ~
"It is because you are not of this world that the world hates you. First it persecuted Me. Persecution is a sign that you are following in My footsteps faithfully."
~ Jesus † (Diary of St. Faustina - 1487) ~
"Vocation is, therefore, a mystery that man accepts and lives in the depths of his being. A gift and a grace, it depends on supreme divine freedom and, in its total reality, it escapes our understanding. We cannot demand explanations from the Giver of all goods - "Why have you made me thus?" (Rom 9:20) because He who calls is also "He who is" (cf. Ex 3:14). Therefore, in the presence of a vocation we adore the mystery, we respond lovingly to the initiative of love, we say yes to the call."
~ Bl. JPII ~
"...My mission is about to begin, my mission of making God loved as I love Him, of giving my 'little way' to souls...my Heaven will be spent on earth, until the end of the world. Yes, I want to spend my Heaven in doing good on earth...I cannot rest as long as there are souls to be saved...I will let fall a shower of Roses...I do not regret having given myself to Love."
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux ~
"We become saints not by thinking about it, and not (certainly) by writing about it, but simply by doing it. There comes a time when the "how?" question stops and we just do it. If the one we love were at our door knocking to come in, would we wonder how the door lock works, and how we could move our muscles to open it?"
~ Peter Kreeft ~
"We come from God, and we are destined to return to Him for all eternity. We are marked, from the moment of conception, RETURN TO SENDER!"
~ Archbishop Timothy Dolan ~
"Consider the surface of a lake, above which the sun is shining. If the surface of the lake is peaceful and tranquil, the sun will be reflected in this lake; and the more peaceful the lake, the more perfectly it will be reflected. If on the contrary, the surface of the lake is agitated, undulating, then the image of the sun can not be reflected in it. [Hence,]...The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His image expresses itself in us, the more His grace acts through us...God is a God of peace...[thus] it is of greatest importance that we strive to remain an interior peace, the peace of our hearts."
~ Fr. Jacques Philippe ~
"As the rays of sun come poking through,
The day and all it holds begins anew.
God's love and warmth surround the morn,
Remember that for you, the Son was born."
"Our Lord loves you and loves you tenderly; and if He does not let you feel the sweetness of His love, it is to make you more humble and abject in your own eyes."
~ St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcino ~
"May nothing trouble my peace or make me leave You, O my Unchanging One, but may each minute carry me further into the depths of Your mystery. Give peace to my soul; make it Your heaven, Your beloved dwelling and Your resting place."
~ Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity ~
"One can say with conviction about Thérèse of Lisieux that the Spirit of God allowed her heart to reveal directly to the people of our time the fundamental mystery, the reality of the Gospel...Her "Little Way" is the way of "holy childhood". There is something unique in this way, the genius of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. At the same time there is the confirmation and renewal of the most basic and most universal truth. What truth of the Godspel message is really more basic and more universal than this: God is our Father and we are His children?"
~ Blessed John Paul II ~
