Christian quotes on Church and State

Benedict XVI. 4 June 2011

"...The participation of representatives from other Churches and Christian communities, as well as the Jewish and Muslim religions, helps remind us that religion is not a separate area marked off from society. Rather, it is a natural element within society, constantly recalling the vertical dimension: attentive listening to God as the condition for seeking the common good, for seeking justice and reconciliation in the truth. Religion places man in relation with God, the Creator and Father of all, and must therefore be a force for peace. Religions need always to be purified according to their true essence in order to correspond to their true mission".

Church and State:  an article written in the Catholic Encyclopedia, available at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14250c.htm

 

Christian quotes on Confession

"At the time of your examination beware of the devil that ties your tongue." 

- St. Josemaria Escriva

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects."

--James, 16

"If the window is dirty, the light cannot come in. If your morals are bad, faith and grace can't fall upon you."

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen

"Your soul stinks. You put all that stuff under your arm. Forget it. The angels can smell you a mile away."

--Mother Angelica (from EWTN)

"Jesus gave the authority to priests to confess sins. You don't like it? Take it up with Him. Nobody just made this stuff up because it's fun. Priests have to confess to other priests too, you know."

--Christopher Majella Paul

"For much of my life I floundered under the excuse of "nobody's perfect," the liberating and over-used phrase that affords guys like me the freedom to pile up sins in a careless and unchecked way. Ironically, being perfect is precisely what we are called to be!"

-- Tarek Saab, Gut Check

"Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

--Oscar Wilde

"Those who have lost their purity are like a piece of cloth stained with oil; you may wash it and dry it, and the stain always appears again; so it requires a miracle to cleanse the impure soul."

--Saint Jean-marie Baptiste de Vianney, the Cure of Ars

"Confession heals, confession justifies, confession grants pardon of sin. All hope consists in confession. In confession there is a chance for mercy. Believe it firmly. Do not doubt, do not hesitate, never despair of the mercy of God. Hope and have confidence in confession."

--St. Isidore of Seville

"The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works."

--St. Augustine

"Many who confess their venial sins out of custom and concern for order but without thought of amendment remain burdened with them for their whole life and thus lose many spiritual benefits and advantages."

--St. Francis de Sales

Christian quotes on Love and Charity

"Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery." 

- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Hatred stirs up disputes but love covers all offenses.

--Proverbs 10:12

Above all, let your love for one another be intense because love covers a multitude of sins.

--1 Peter, 4:8

The bread in your box belongs to the hungry; the cloak in your closet belongs to the naked; the shoes you do not wear belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute.

--Saint Basil

"So the divine love is sacrificial love. Love does not mean to have and to own and to possess. It means to be had and to be owned and to be possessed. It is not a circle circumscribed by self, it is arms outstretched to embrace all humanity within its grasp."" 

- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." 

- Mother Teresa

"The person who does not decide to love forever will find it very difficult to really love for even one day." 

- Pope John Paul II

"Anyone who truly loves God travels securely." 

- St. Teresa of Avila

"If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves."

--Thomas Sowell

"No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ." 

- St. Leo the Great

"Love to be real, it must costÀúit must hurtÀúit must empty us of self." 

- Mother Teresa

"It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters." 

- Mother Teresa

"Have a great compassion for people. To be able to have a heart full of compassion, we need to pray. Especially be kind, be loving to the poor. We think we do so much for the poor, but it is they who make us rich. We are in debt to them. Do you want to do something beautiful for God? There is a person who needs you. This is your chance." 

- Mother Teresa

"Charity unites us to God. There is nothing mean in charity, nothing arrogant. Charity knows no schism, does not rebel, does all things in concord. In charity all the elect of God have been made perfect." 

- St. Clement I

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not there, I think the ocean would be less by that missing drop. We don't have to think in numbers. We can only love one person at a time - serve one person at a time." 

- Mother Teresa

"Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work." 

- Mother Teresa

"Real love is demanding. I would fail in my mission if I did not tell you so. Love demands a personal commitment to the will of God." 

- Pope John Paul II

"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." 

- Pope John Paul II

"At the end of life, we shall be judged by love." 

- San Juan de la Cruz

"The woman is at the heart of the home. Let us pray that we women realize the reason for our existence: to love and be loved and through this love become instruments of peace in the world." 

- Mother Teresa

'You ask me for some short prayer by which to testify your love for God. I know of and consider nothing more efficacious than this same love, for when one loves, everything speaks of love, even our most absorbing occupations can be a proof of our love. Love then -- as St. Augustine says -- and do what you will.'

--St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

"By your work you show what you love and what you know." 

- St. Bruno

Christian quotes on Anger

'Only the person who becomes irate without reason, sins. Whoever becomes irate for a just reason is not guilty. Because, if ire were lacking, the science of God would not progress, judgments would not be sound, and crimes would not be repressed.'

--St. Thomas Aquinas

"Watch out for your anger to grow into resentment and hatred!"

--Christopher Majella Paul

"Hatred stirs up disputes but love covers all offenses."

--Proverbs 10:12

"Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger and do not give the devil a chance to work on you."

--Ephesians 4:26-27

"It is because anger and impatience are the very pith and sap of pride thalt they please the devil so much...There is no sin nor wrong that gives a man such a foretaste of hell in this life as anger and impatience."

--Saint Catherine of Siena

"Impatience is the beginning and occasion of every sin."

--Saint Catherine of Siena

"Impatience shows more clearly than any other sin that the soul is deprived of God."

--Saint Catherine of Siena

"There is no ideal situation. You can't get rid of your cross."

--Mother Angelica

"God's law in the Old Testament is clear and unambiguous: You shall not kill. Jesus is even more demanding: Every one who is angry is liable to judgment. Sins against the Fifth Commandment are easy to commit. Any time we think, speak or act out of anger or hatred or jealousy or revenge, we abuse God's commandment that we respect His most precious gift, the gift of life — especially human life."

--Archbishop Robert J. Carlson

The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.

--Bede Jarrett 

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. 

--Marcus Aurelius 

Christopher West to speak at ICD (Immaculate Conception in Dardenne Prairie, MO)on April 11 @ 7:00

Christopher West at ICD on April 11 @ 7:00

St. Joseph Radio announced that Christopher West will be speaking at ICD on April 11 @ 7:00 p.m.  In the words of Christopher "This talk is not only for married people.  If you have a body, this talk is for you."   Please forward this on to all of your friends.   

Divine Mercy Novena

Divine Mercy Novena 2012

Starting on Good Friday, I am joining more than 10,000 Catholics to pray a Divine Mercy Novena!

I'm trying to help this online prayer community (PrayMoreNovenas.com) to get 20,000 people praying this novena for God's Mercy. We all need Mercy, right?

You can sign up for handy email reminders to get the the novena prayers here: http://www.praymorenovenas.com/divine-mercy-novena

After you sign up, maybe you can help spread the word as well. God's Mercy is abundant and overflowing, let's share it!

Comments about Greeks protesting and looting in anger about government spending cuts. Greeks Pessimistic in Anti-Austerity Protests - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/world/europe/greeks-pessimistic-in-anti-austerity-protests.html?_r=1&hp&emc=na

This is what happens when we fail to teach our children some basics Laws of economics. The Greeks are destroying the very places that can save them and employ them! What a bunch of thug loser low lifes! The country is broke and has to cut subsidies and they go crazy, looting businesses, the very source of ANY money to begin with! Then they want to literally kill the members of parliament for doing what they had to do. And they had to do it only because of the dumb liars in parliament who, for the last thirty years, continued the lie that they could give the people everything they needed, without having any money to pay for it! I think this parliament finally deserves recognition for doing what has to be done.

Why don't people learn from all the failed attempts at socialism? It won't work because it can't work. Saint Therese, a doctor of the Church, taught us that without love any task is meaningless.

There is no love in socialism.

One can call a family a small socialist group and it works ONLY because of love. Love is tender and tough, but always seeks the good, the betterment of every individual. Saint Paul taught us how to love our brothers, including a requirement that able men work and not get handouts for nothing. Governments shouldn't be trying to alter God's plan for men. Putting free-loading men outside of the community was a very effective means of removing the sin they were trapped in. Spiritual therapy and tough love are synonymous and socialist governments remove the therapy, the very tool that God taught us to use. Socialism prevents men from becoming all that God wants them to be.

If we don't teach all of our youth, they will end up like these Greek losers. Let us pray and fast for them to mature into men for God.

Great article on Tolerance. "What is Tolerance?" by TFP Student Action

http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/politically-incorrect/homosexuality/what-is-tolerance.html?utm_source=sm&utm_medium=email&utm_content=SAE0114&utm_campaign=MainNewsletter

Pope Benedict prayer & quote on the Eucharist, sacrifices

Let us ask the Lord that, after due preparation also with the Sacrament of Penance, our participation in the Eucharist, which is indispensable for Christian life, may always remain the apex of all our prayers", the Pope concluded. "Let us ask that, profoundly united in His offering to the Father, we too can transform our crosses into a free and responsible sacrifice of love, for God and for our fellows". 11 Jan 2012

Pope Benedict XVI, Blessed John Paul II, and Vatican II on Ecumenism

Ecumenism, as defined by Vatican Council II and Blessed John Paul II, is "the responsibility of the entire Church and of all the baptised, who must augment the partial communion that already exists among Christians until achieving full communion in truth and charity. Praying for unity ... must then be an integral part of the prayer life of all Christians, in all times and places, especially when people from different traditions come together to work for victory in Christ over sin, evil, injustice and the violation of human dignity".

Benedict XVI also pointed out that "lack of unity among Christians hinders the effective announcement of the Gospel and endangers our credibility", but noted that, "as far as the fundamental truths of the faith are concerned, there is far more that unites us than divides us. ... This is a great challenge for the new evangelisation, which will be more fruitful if all Christians together announce the truth of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, and give a joint response to the spiritual thirst of our times". 1-18-2012