Saint John of the Cross on Suffering and the Love of God

And I saw a river over which every soul must pass to reach the Kingdom of Heaven, and the name of that river was suffering … and then I saw a boat which carried souls across the river, and the name of that boat was Love.

Saint John of the Cross

Flannery O’Connor on being Catholic to the Core

I am a Catholic not like someone else would be a Baptist or a Methodist, but like someone else would be an atheist.

– Flannery O’Connor

St. Alphonsus Liguori on Speaking with God as if Alone with Him

Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears — of everything that concerns you. Converse with Him confidently and frankly; for God is not wont to speak to a soul that does not speak to Him.

St. Alphonsus Liguori

St. Augustine of Hippo on Loving God Late

Late have I loved You. O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

– St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Therese of Lisieux on Prayer Through Silence

Frequently, only silence can express my prayer.

St. Therese of Lisieux

Flannery O’Connor on Catholic Belief

If you’re a Catholic you believe what the Church teaches and the climate makes no difference.

Flannery O’Connor

Pope Paul VI on Christ Establishing the Church and Sending Her the Holy Spirit

Christ did not found an abstract religion, a mere school of religious thought. He setup a community of apostles, of teachers, with the task of spreading His message and so giving rise to a society of believers: His Church. He promised the Spirit of truth to His Church and then sent Him.

Pope Paul VI (1897-1978AD)

Pope Benedict XVI on Letting Christ Enter Fully into our Lives

‎If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant . . .? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? . . . No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return.

Pope Benedict XVI, April 24, 2005

GK Chesterson on Christianity

Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags.

GK Chesterson

C.S Lewis on Aiming for Heaven

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

C. S. Lewis

St. Therese The Little Flower on Jesus Protecting from Harm

No harm can come to me since, in whatever happens, I see only the tender hand of Jesus.

St. Therese, The Little Flower

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Judging the Catholic Church by her Members

Judge the Catholic Church not by those who barely live by its spirit, but by the example of those who live closest to it.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

St. Augustine on Confession and Reconciliation

Whoever confesses his sins . . . is already working with God. God indicts your sins; if you also indict them, you are joined with God. Man and sinner are, so to speak, two realities: when you hear “man” – this is what God has made; when you hear “sinner” – this is what man himself has made. Destroy what you have made, so that God may save what he has made. . . . When you begin to abhor what you have made, it is then that your good works are beginning, since you are accusing yourself of your evil works. The beginning of good works is the confession of evil works. You do the truth and come to the light.

St. Augustine – referenced in CCC Paragraph 1458

Winston Churchill on Socialism

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

Dr. O. A. Brownson on Protestantism Laying Claim to Catholic Truth

That Protestants, that so-called orthodox Protestants at least, profess to hold, and claim as belonging to their Protestantism, many things that are also held by Catholics, nobody denies; but these things are no part of Protestantism, for the Church held and taught them ages before Protestantism was born. They are part and parcel of the one Catholic faith, and belong to Catholics only. Protestants can rightfully claim as Protestant only those things wherein they differ from the Church, which the Church denies, and which they assert; that is, what is peculiarly or distinctively Protestant. We cannot allow them to claim as theirs what is and always has been ours; we willingly accord them their own, but not one whit more. All which they profess to hold in common with us is ours, not theirs. Adopting this rule, which is just and unimpeachable, nothing in fact is theirs but their denials, and as all their denials are, as we have seen, made on no Catholic principle or truth, they are pure negations, and hence Protestantism is purely negative, and consequently is no religion, for all religion is affirmative.

Dr. O. A. Brownson

St. Catherine of Siena on Doing our Duty

If you are what you should be, you will set the world on fire.

St. Catherine of Siena

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. on Unity in Spite of Injury

You must expect that these poor sinners in the Church are going to get hurt and that they are going to hurt each other. To be let down by the Church is not a reason to leave her, any more than to be let down by your family is a reason to give up family life and move to a desert island. Are there any who have not been hurt by members of their family? In his ‘City of God’, St. Augustine wisely observed that it breaks the heart of any good person to see that even in one’s own home one is not in a safe place and that one may be attacked even there by an enemy posing as a friend or even by an enemy who used to be a loved one. If we all gave up on the human race because we have been hurt, we’d have to move to separate planets.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. – “Arise from Darkness”

William Wordsworth on Mary, Our Tainted Nature’s Solitary Boast

Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature’s solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven’s blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother’s love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

William Wordsworth – Our Tainted Nature’s Solitary Boast

St. Augustine on Christ Giving His Body to His Disciples

Christ held Himself in His hands when He gave His Body to His disciples.

St. Augustine – 405 A.D.

Pope Benedict XVI on Leading Others to Christ

Anyone who has discovered Christ must lead others to him. A great joy cannot be kept to oneself. It has to be passed on.

Pope Benedict XVI – 2005 World Youth Day

Pope Benedict XV on Devout Appeals to Mary

To Mary, then, who is the Mother of Mercy and omnipotent by grace, let loving and devout appeal go up from every corner of the earth.

Pope Benedict XV – 1917 A.D.

Pope John Paul II on Mary our Mother

The Mother of Christ, who stands at the very center of this mystery…is given as mother to every single individual and all mankind.

Pope John Paul II – 1987 A.D.

St. Bernadette Soubirous on Loving

I shall spend every moment loving. One who loves does not notice her trials; or perhaps more accurately, she is able to love them. I shall do everything for Heaven, my true home. There I shall find my Mother in all the splendor of her glory. I shall delight with her in the joy of Jesus himself in perfect safety.

St. Bernadette Soubirous

St. Thomas More on Remaining True in the Midst of a Storm

You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds. What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can.

St. Thomas More (Utopia)

St. Gregory of Nyssa on Holiness

If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life.

St. Gregory of Nyssa

St John of the Cross on Silent Love of God

What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.

St John of the Cross

St. Ignatius of Loyola on Submission to God

Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that I am and all that I possess You have given me. I surrender it all to You to be disposed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love and Your grace; with these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.

St. Ignatius of Loyola

Archbishop Fulton Sheen on Hiding from God

Ever since the days of Adam, man has been hiding from God and saying, ‘God is hard to find.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

St. Padre Pio on Living for Jesus

‎May the Heart of Jesus be the goal of all your aspirations.

St. Padre Pio

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman on Heaven and Perspective

To the irreligious person heaven would be hell.

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman