“When I had come by ill luck to Ireland – well, every day I used to look after sheep and I used to pray often during the day, the love of God and the fear of Him increased more and more in me and my faith began to grow and...
“I have been amazed that some are utterly in doubt as to whether or not the Holy Virgin is able to be called the Mother of God. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how should the Holy Virgin who bore Him not be the Mother of God?” St....
“All truth wherever it is found belongs to us as Christians.” St. Justin Martyr (2nd century) “What contradicts truth cannot be just.” St. Augustine (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church) “For it is our plain duty to preach and defend the truth in a straightforward way. Those who are to...
“If you have begun to act well, do not turn back through constraint of the enemy, for your endurance destroys the enemy. Those who put out to sea at first sail with a favorable wind. Then the sails spread, but later the winds become adverse. Then the waves toss the...
“The Cross, if you wish to define it, is the confirmation of victory, the way by which God descended to man, the trophy against material spirits, the repulsion of death, the foundation of the ascent to the true day, and the ladder for those who hurry to enjoy the light...
“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.” St. Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th centuries, Doctor of the Church) “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”...
“While men, indeed, cannot make anything out of nothing, but only out of matter already existing, yet God is in this point preeminently superior to men, that He Himself called into being the substance of His creation, when previously it had no existence.” St. Irenaeus (2nd-3rd centuries) “For God, being...
“If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.” St. Peter Chrysologus (5th century, Doctor of the Church) “We can be excused for not...
“O name of Mary! Joy in the heart, honey in the mouth, melody to the ear of her devout clients!” St. Anthony of Padua (12th-13th centuries, Doctor of the Church) “Never has it been known, dearest Lady and Mother, that anyone who fled to your protection was left unaided.” Bl....
“There is no remedy so powerful against the heat of concupiscence as the remembrance of our Saviour’s Passion. In all my difficulties, I never found anything so efficacious as the wounds of Christ. In them I sleep secure. From them, I derive new life.” St. Augustine of Hippo (4th-5th centuries,...