Quotes about Gratefulness

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." When he saw them he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then said Jesus, "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And he said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well." 

--Luke 17:11-19

 'In all your needs, trustfully have recourse to the divine Heart, and I am confident that our Lord

will provide for your wants; but above all be very grateful for the many benefits 

He has bestowed on you.'  --St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Quotes about Friendship

 "A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are."

--unknown

Seeing your brother is seeing God.

--Saint Clement of Alexandria

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God. 

--Saint Teresa 

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.  

--Saint Thomas Aquinas

Quotes about Freedom

 "The call for a sincere gift of self is the fullest way to realize our personal freedom." 

- Pope John Paul II

"Just as religion has need of freedom, so also freedom has need of religion."

--Bishop Wilhelm von Ketteler

"Finally, true freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom 

with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality.

 It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values,

 and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. 

Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace." 

- Pope John Paul II

"Freedom requires a primordial link to a higher instance. The fact that there are values which are not

 absolutely open to manipulation is the true guarantee of our freedom", which "develops only in 

responsibility to a greater good. Such a good exists only for all of us together. ... 

In human coexistence, freedom is impossible without solidarity. ... 

This holds true not only in private matters but also for society as a whole. 

In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, society must give sufficient space 

for smaller structures to develop and, at the same time, must support them so that one day 

they will stand on their own."

--Pope Benedict XVI, Sept 22, 2011

"Do not be afraid to be saints. Follow Jesus Christ who is the source of freedom and light. 

Be open to the Lord so that He may lighten all your ways." 

- Pope John Paul II

"Living out one's faith is either no way to live or the only way to live; it's either imprisonment,

 or the only path to freedom. It offers happiness, or it frustrates the pursuit. 

There is no half-love, half-religion, half-worship, half-belief, half-truth. There is no kinda-sorta." 

- Tarek Saab, Gut Check

'We have learned to recognize as freedom that which the Lord alone confers on us when he liberates

 us from lusts and desires and the other passions. "He who says, I know the Lord, and does not keep

 his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him," says John.'

--St. Clement of Alexandria

Quotes about the Virtue Fortitude

 "I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. " 

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"Constant dropping wears away stones."--Ben Franklin

"Living out one's faith is either no way to live or the only way to live; it's either imprisonment,

 or the only path to freedom. It offers happiness, or it frustrates the pursuit. 

There is no half-love, half-religion, half-worship, half-belief, half-truth. There is no kinda-sorta." 

- Tarek Saab, Gut Check

The person with fortitude is one who perseveres in doing what his conscience tells him he ought to do. 

He does not measure the value of a task exclusively by the benefit he receives from it,

 but rather by the service he renders to others. The strong man will at times suffer, 

but he stands firm; he may be driven to tears, but he will brush them aside. 

When difficulties come thick and fast, he does not bend before them. 

Remember the example given us in the book of the Machabees: 

an old man, Eleazar, prefers to die rather than break God's law. 

'By manfully giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age

 and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly

 and nobly for the revered and holy laws.'

--Saint Josemaria Escriva

 

Quotes about Fear

 

We have authority over fear:

 1. Plead the Precious Blood of Jesus. Give the fear to God. 

 2. Be yourself. 

 3. Stop hiding or repressing your emotions but let reason and will guide your actions. 

 4. Do not hang on to your fear, especially the fear of hurting someone’s feelings. 

 5. Do what it is you are fearing, or do whatever fear is preventing you from doing.

 Be assertive, not aggressive but assert yourself.

“Whoever fears is not perfect in love.”

--1 John 4:18

“Whoever is afraid doesn’t know to love.”

--Saint Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer

“I do not fear Satan half so much as I fear those who fear him.”

--Saint Teresa of Avila

1 John:

Love has no room for fear;

rather, perfect love casts out all fear.

And since fear has to do with punishment,

love is not yet perfect in one who is afraid.

“Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”

--Saint Francis of Assisi

“...work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

--Philippians 2:12

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves--regret for the past and fear of the future.”

--Fulton Oursler

“The future is called perhaps, which is the only possible thing to call the future. 

And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.”

--Saint John Chrysostom

“Men do not fear a hostile and powerful army as much as the powers of hell fear

 the name and protection of Mary.”

--Saint Bonaventure

"If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common

 denominator of human achievement."

--Jimmy Carter

 

Fasting & Mortification Quotes

And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. --Mark 9:29

See also, Matthew 17:21

Prayer combined with fasting is quite powerful.  The first Christians and Jews of Jesus' time fasted on bread and water every Wednesday and Friday.

Now, therefore says the Lord, “Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning.”—Joel 2:12

And as they were ministering to the Lord, and fasting, the Holy Ghost said to them, separate me Saul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have taken them. Then, they, fasting and praying, and imposing their hands upon them, sent them away. —Acts 13:2-3

And when they had ordained to them priests in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, in whom they believed.—Acts 14:22

Furthermore, it exhorts that they fast at least every Friday in memory of the passion of the Lord and give alms to the poor.—instruction give to participants of the Council of Trent, Sessions 1-5 (2) 1.2

Jesus himself has shown us by his own example that prayer and fasting are the first and most effective weapons against the forces of evil. (Mt 4:1-11). As he taught his disciples, some demons cannot be driven out except in this way (Mt 17:20) (Mk:9:29) Let is therefore discover anew the humility and the courage to pray and fast so that the power from on high will break down the walls of lies and deceit: the walls that conceal from the sight of so many of our brothers and sisters the evil of practices and laws which are hostile to life.

“To mortify one passion, no matter how small, is a greater help in the spiritual life than many abstinences, fasts, and disciplines.” --St. Philip Neri

“In the consciences of many, the meaning of Christianity has been so distorted that when they

 speak of mortification and penance they think only of the rigorous fasts and hair shirts mentioned

in the awe-inspiring tales that are found in some lives of saints. At the start of this meditation, 

we took as a self-evident premise the fact that we must imitate Jesus, taking him as the model 

for our behavior. It is true that he made ready for his preaching by retiring into the wilderness to fast

 for forty days and forty nights. But, before this, and afterwards, he practiced the virtue of temperance

 with such naturalness that his enemies took advantage of it to slander him as a 'glutton and a drunkard,

 the friend of publicans and sinners.”

--Saint Josemaria Escriva

“A man should not so attach himself to the means as to forget the end; neither must we give ourselves

 so much to mortify the flesh as to forget to mortify the brain, which is the chief thing after all.”

 --St. Philip Neri

Faith & Reason Quotes--They seem a contradiction in terms but are not.

 

Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves."

- Pope John Paul II

 

"Some psychologists argue that the idea of God is a response to our emotional needs, but this presumption is backwards. Our emotional fluctuations are a psychological response to our lack of love for God.  If God is everything, what else could we possibly want?"

- Tarek Saab, Gut Check

 

"Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion."

--Richard John Neuhaus

 

"Faith is not a contract. Faith is surrender. If no other relationship in our experience is one of self-surrender, if it’s all contractual, people won’t know how to believe."

- Archbishop Francis George

 

"I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind."

- St. Bernard

 

"Faith means the fundamental response to the love that has offered itself up for me. It thus becomes clear that faith is ordered primarily to the inconceivability of God's love, which surpasses us and anticipates us. Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed. This is the achievement, the work‚ of faith: to recognize this absolute prius, which nothing else can surpass; to believe that there is such a thing as love, absolute love, and that there is nothing higher or greater than it."

- Fr. Hans Urs Von Balthasar

 

"Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it."

- St. Blaise Pascal

 

"Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods."

- C.S. Lewis

 

"That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy."

--Jonathan Swift

 

"Truth is not determined by a majority vote."

- Pope Benedict XVI

 

Faith, Reasoning, and Suffering:

   Why does it all have to be so difficult?  It drives me crazy.  All you can do is   

   just accept the way it is or go crazy. 

 

   I read these great thoughts of the saints and think, really?  I am supposed  

    to really accept that this is how God wants it?  Suffer to gain happiness? 

    What sort of weird thinking is that?  The only answer is He did it so go

    with it.  He said so, so quit thinking like a man.  But I am a man!

 

     As long as God's promises are true, then the greatest frustration is the

     devil's.  Everything he does is used for good in the end.  The greatest of all

     his plans, all His cruel demented twisted crap ends up in a greater good. 

     All things work for God.  All of this mental and physical suffering is our

     pathway.  The devil mucks it up and the muck becomes pavement

     for us to get even closer to God.  Then every suffering endured patiently is   

     another battle won.

 

     Job:  Life on earth is warfare.

 

     The problem is accepting, truly accepting, like these saints did.  Can I do

     this?  This seems like nonsense sometimes, but insanity is the  

     alternative.  So God's reason must be true.  God's rational mind must

     trump my irrational one.  As long as I cannot accept these statements

     below, I am irrational.

 

“One cannot desire freedom from the Cross when one is especially chosen for the cross.”

--Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), who suffered the Nazi holocaust

 

“Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”

--Saint Rose of Lima

 

“Let us fear more to be deprived of sufferings than a miser fears to lose his treasures.”

--Saint Paul of the Cross

Integrity Quotes

 "Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." --G.K. Chesterton

"Any goal without salvation as its ultimate end is as pointless as trying to live forever

     on this earth." --Tarek Saab, Gut Check

 
"In the fulfillment of your duties, let your intentions be so pure that you reject from your actions 

    any other motive than the glory of God and the salvation of souls." --St. Angela Merici

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." 

--Mother Teresa

“The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gains more fruit.”--Saint Teresa of Avila

“Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit.

 Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.”

        --Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners

“The soul will not attain sanctity if it does not keep watch over its tongue.”
--Saint Faustina Kowalska

“Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.”

--Jack Buck, sports announcer

“...teaching is food, even for the teacher.”
--Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Bishop

"Charity begins today. Today somebody is suffering, today somebody is in the street,

 today somebody is hungry. Our work is for today, yesterday has gone, 

tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today to make Jesus known, 

loved, served, fed, clothed, sheltered. Do not wait for tomorrow. 

Tomorrow we will not have them if we do not feed them today."

--Mother Teresa

"The devil is afraid of us when we pray and make sacrifices. 

He is also afraid when we are humble and good. 

He is especially afraid when we love Jesus very much. 

He runs away when we make the Sign of the Cross."
--St. Anthony of the Desert

Before reading these next two quotes, it is important to note that charity,

in these quotes’ original languages, means Love and is the same love

that the gospel writer John uses to say about God when he says,

“God is love.”  In English, we use love in many connotations 

but the ancients had different words  for different types of love.

Charity for us now seems to mean generosity, 

but that is not its true full meaning. Generosity is a result of charity.

“Faith and charity [love that God is] are the beginning and end of life.

The beginning is faith; the end is charity [love that God is]. 

Both, joined in unity, lead to God, and all the rest that attains perfection

and holiness follows from them.” --Saint Ignatius of Antioch

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your: Faith with virtue,

virtue with knowledge, Knowledge with self-control [temperance], 

self-control with steadfastness [endurance with patience],

steadfastness with godliness [devotion/piety], and godliness

 with brotherly affection [fraternal love/mutual affection],

 and brotherly affection with charity [love that is God]”

--2 Peter, 1:5-8

“Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is doing it, and right is right, even if nobody is doing it.”
--Saint Augustine

“The times are past when they closed our mouths with sausage.”

--A Polish poet, a few months after the strike in August 1980, 

referring to their integrity not being for sale anymore.

"Managers that always promise to 'make the numbers' will at some point be tempted

 to make up the numbers." - Warren Buffett

"An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded." 

- Pope John Paul II