Quotes Tagged "saints"

Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.

Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.

The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. (City of God, Book 19)

The saints, too, had wandering minds. The saints, too, had constantly to recall their constantly wandering mind-child home. They became saints because they continued to go after the little wanderer, like the Good Shepherd.

Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.

...the dead have a way of becoming saints in the eyes of their survivors...

There is no sin nor wrong that gives man such a foretaste of Hell in this life as anger and impatience.

Secede not from the Church: for nothing is stronger than the Church. Thy hope is the Church; thy salvation is the Church; thy refuge is the Church. It is higher than the heavens and wider than the earth. It never grows old, but is ever full of vigour. Wherefore Holy Writ pointing to its strength and stability calls it a mountain

The most sacred truths of the faith are given full material reality, leading up to that moment when Christ himself becomes present at the altar. This was marked by the moment of elevation when the priest held up the host, become by a miracle the body of Jesus. At that instant candles and torches, made up of bundles of wood, were lit to illuminate the scene; the sacring bell was rung, and the church bells pealed so that those in the neighbouring streets or fields might be aware of the solemn moment. It was the sound which measured the hours of their day. Christ was present in their midst once more and, as a the priest lifted up the thin wafer of bread, time and eternity were reconciled.

We would never call inexplicable little insights 'hunches,' for fear of drawing the universe's attention. But they happened, and you knew you had been in the proximity of one that had come through if you saw a detective kiss his or her fingers and touch his or her chest where a pendant to Warsha, patron saint of inexplicable inspirations, would, theoretically, hang.

[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company.

It is no sign of benediction to have been obsessed with the lives of saints, for it is an obsession intertwined with a taste for maladies and hunger for depravities. One only troubles oneself with saints because one has been disappointed by the paradoxes of earthly life; one therefore searches out other paradoxes, more outlandish in guise, redolent of unknown truths, unknown perfumes...

She has decided to appear to nobody but the feckless.

Wanasayansi wanaamini kuwa Yesu atarudi tarehe 29 Julai 2016. Tarehe hiyo kitu kikubwa sana kitatokea katika dunia yetu kitakachosababisha tetemeko kubwa la ardhi, litakalosababishwa na kubadilika kwa ncha za dunia, tendo litakalosababisha mionzi ya gama kutoka kwenye jua ifike duniani na kuua kila kitu kinachoonekana katika uso wa dunia hii. Watakatifu watafufuka na kumlaki Kristo mawinguni, ambaye anakuja kuwachukua wateule na kumweka Shetani kifungoni kwa miaka 1000. Hayo yote, wanasema, yatatokea ndani ya siku 11 kuanzia leo. Yaani, kusini mwa dunia kutakuwa kaskazini mwa dunia, kaskazini mwa dunia kutakuwa kusini mwa dunia. Kitendo hicho kitafanya dunia ikose kinga ya sumaku iitwayo ‘magnetosphere’ ambayo hukinga dunia dhidi ya mionzi ya gama kutoka kwenye jua. Mionzi hiyo hugonga ukuta wa ‘magnetosphere’ kila baada ya dakika 8 kwa mwendokasi wa kilometa milioni 1080 kwa saa; na kusambazwa katika ncha za dunia ambapo aghalabu huchanganyikana na oksijeni na kutengeneza kitu kinaitwa ‘aurora’, au mwanga wa ncha, ambacho ni maajabu mengine ya angani. Mwaka 2012 wanasayansi walisema ncha za dunia zingebadilika lakini hazikubadilika. Je, muda umefika sasa wa kuwaamini wanasayansi? Biblia ni chuo cha Mungu. Soma Biblia kupata maarifa.

If the institution of marriage is not the foundational steps to sainthood in our lifetime, then nothing is.

There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia. I can't get enough of watching the bees and trying to imagine how they experience the abundance of, say, a blue campanula blosssom, the dizzy light pulsing, every fiber of being immersed in the flower. ... Last night, after a day in the garden, I asked Robin to explain (again) photosynthesis to me. I can't take in this business of _eating light_ and turning it into stem and thorn and flower... I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation. Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole, a kataphatic mystic, as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts: but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles. Francis and Thérèse were made, really made, any mother superior will let you know, in the dark nights of their lives: no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms. When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period, my grandmother took me aside and said, 'Now your childhood is over. You will never really be happy again.' That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism. But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.

Intellect is the light which illuminates its path, and without this light, emotion changes back and forth. In fact, if emotions prevail over the intellect, it is able to obscure the light and distort the picture of the entire world…. Emotional stirrings need the control of reason and the direction of the will.

The saints do not contemplate in order to know, but to love. And they love not for the sake of loving but for the love of Him that they love. It is because they are in love with God that they aspire to that union with God which love desires, loving themselves only for his sake. Their aim is not to exult in their own intelligence or nature and so abide in themselves: it is to do the will of Another and contribute to the good of Goodness. They do not seek for their soul. They lose it, they have it no more. If in entering into the mystery of divine sonship, in becoming somewhat of God himself they gain a transcendent personality, an independence and a liberty which nothing in this world can touch it is by forgetting all this so that not they but their Beloved lives in them.

Saints can be happy under every circumstance.