I will include more quotations in months to come and hope to build up quite a large compendium of them. I also hope to include other content about Catholic men and women on this site.
If you like this site, you might consider buying my book Inspiration from the Saints, a collection of stories from the lives of Catholic saints and Blesseds.
André Bessette (1845-1973)
[On Communion once a year:] If you ate only once a year, you’d be very sick. You are starving your soul.
When a person does his best, he can have confidence in the good God.
Every house is lighted. Should not God’s house be lighted too?
Always be prepared to die! We think least of the most important thing that is to happen to us.
Money is nothing. You ought to be worrying about your soul. You might lose it as well.
Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati 1901-1925
To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth, that is not living, but existing.
Charity is not enough; we need social reform.
The faith given to me in baptism suggests to me surely: by yourself you will do nothing, but if you have God as the center of all your action, then you will reach the goal.
Venerable Catherine McAuley (1778-1841)
I humbly trust it is the cross of Christ. I endeavour to make it in some way like his by silence.
Should we live to be a hundred, each day should be more perfect.
What is this poor miserable world btu a place of sorrow and continued disappointment? God be praised it is not our fixed abode, only the weary road that leads to it.
Take from my heart all painful anxiety...suffer nothing to afflict me but sin, nothing to delight me but the hope of coming into possession of Thee, my God, in Thine own everlasting kingdom.
Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916)
I find it hard to obey interiorly.
To proclaim the Gospel by my whole life. (Motto.)
Our religion will remain until the Last Judgement, without any change.
It is not for me to sow the seed...I prepare the ground, others will sow, others will reap the harvest.
Disease, danger, the sight of death, they are no other than the call that is heard: “Behold, the Bridesgroom cometh”...
Live as if you were today to die a martyr.
You ask me if I am ready to go elsewhere than Beni-Abbè in the cause of the Gospel. For that I am ready to go to the end of the world and live to the Day of Judgement.
St. Dominic Savio (1842-1857)
The eyes are windows. As you need only see what you wish through a window, so with the eyes; they may show us an angel of light or the spirit of darkness, both equally anxious possess our souls.
All that we possess on earth is the precious gift of Divine liberality; but after grace, the greatest of God’s benefits of humanity is the food which sustains our life, that is why every scrap should be scrupulously collected.
I feel a great longing to be a saint, and if I do not become one, I shall achieved nothing.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821)
Welcome disappointment and poverty, sickness and pain, welcome even contempt and calumny. If this be a rough and thorny path, it is one which thou hast trod before us. When we see thy footsteps we cannot repine.”
[Of her troubles:] My husband, my sister, my home, my comforts-- poverty and sorrow. Well, with God’s blessing, you too shall be changed into friends.
[Of her heart:] Turn its dearest joys and sorrow, its fondest hopes to anguish, only fasten it ever unchangeably to Thyself.
Blessed Eugenie Smet (1825-1871
If our friends were in a prison of fire we would do all we could to set them free, so we ought to help them free the Holy Souls in Purgatory by our prayers.
I must make myself pleasing that I may make You loved.
Grant me the grace to do something great for you before I die.
Work for the living that you may work for the dead.
Suffering is the key to heaven.
He is the Man of Sorrows. I would not be the woman of enjoyment.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917)
I like to keep Jesus company when he is alone.
Do you think God asks only the possible?
Remember the cry of Hosanna! can change very quickly to Crucify!
There is unlimited credit in the bank of Heaven.
St. Jean Vianney (1786-1859)
On lukewarm Christians: “In front of devout people he talks about religion. When he is with those who have no religion, he will talk only about the pleasures of the world. He would blush to fulfil his religious practices in front of his companions or those boys and girls who share his evil ways....
If a person has true virtue, nothing whatever can change him; he is like a rock in the midst of a tempestuous sea. If anyone scorns you, or calumniates you, if someone mocks at you or calls you a hypocrite or a sanctimonious fraud, none of this will have the least effect upon your peace of soul. You will love him just as much as you loved him when he was saying good things about you.
If people would do for God what they do for the world, my dear people, what a great number of Christians would go to Heaven! But if you, dear children, had to pass three or four hours praying in a church, as you pass them at a dance or in a cabaret, how heavily the time would press upon you! If you had to go to a great many different places in order to hear a sermon, as you go for your pastimes or to satisfy your avarice and greed, what pretexts there would be, and how many detours would be taken to avoid going at all. But nothing is too much trouble when done for the world.
The Holy Ghost tells us: "The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God." But it is only the corruption of his heart which could carry man to such an excess; he does not believe it in the depths of his soul. The words "There is a God" will never entirely disappear. The greatest sinner will often utter them without even thinking of what he is saying.
If someone cheats us once, we say: "We will not trust him any more -- and with good reason." The world cheats us continually and yet we love it."
All Christians have a great devotion to Mary except those old and hardened sinners who, for a very long time, having lost the faith, wallow in the slime of their brute passions.
The Devil tries to keep them in this state of blindness until that moment when death opens their eyes. Ah! If they had but the happiness to have recourse to Mary they would not fall into Hell, as will happen to them!
The obligation we have to love our neighbour is so important that Jesus Christ put it into a Commandment which He placed immediately after that by which He commands us to love Him with all our hearts. He tells us that all the law and the prophets are included in this commandment to love our neighbour. Yes, my dear brethren, we must regard this obligation as the most universal, the most necessary and the most essential to religion and to our salvation. In fulfilling this Commandment, we are fulfilling all others. St. Paul tells us that the other Commandments forbid us to commit adultery, robbery, injuries, false testimonies. If we love our neighbour, we shall not do any of these things because the love we have for our neighbour would not allow us to do him any harm.
Consult all the lives of the saints; you will find nothing in them which does not conform with this virtue. No, you will not find one of them who did not choose to do good to someone who had done them harm. Look at St. Francis de Sales, who tells us that if he had only one good work to do, he would choose to do it for someone who had done him some wrong rather than for someone who had done him some good service. Alas, my dear brethren, the person who has no charity goes far afield for evil! If someone does him some harm, you see him examining all his actions then.
All the time that we deprive ourselves of anything which it gives us pleasure to do, we are practicing a fast which is very pleasing to God because fasting does not consist solely of privations in eating and drinking, but of denying ourselves that which pleases our taste most.
Tell me, now, is there any fasting which would be more pleasing to God than to do and to endure with patience certain things which often are very disagreeable to you? Without mentioning illness, infirmities, or so many other afflictions which are inseparable from our wretched life, how often do we not have the opportunity to mortify ourselves in putting up with what annoys and revolts us? Sometimes it is work which wearies us greatly; sometimes it is some person who annoys us. At another time it may be some humiliation which is very difficult to endure. Well, then, my children, if we put up with all that for God and solely to please Him, these are the fasts which are most agreeable to God and most meritorious in His eyes.
Alas! How many good things, which would help us so well to gain Heaven, go unrewarded simply by not doing our ordinary duties with the right intention!
To make us appreciate more keenly the necessity to turn our eyes to eternal blessings, God has filled our hearts with desires so vast and so magnificent that nothing in creation is capable of satisfying them.
We see that the Church makes the Sign of the Cross in all her ceremonies, in the administration of all the Sacraments. Why is that? My friends, this is why. It is because all our prayers and all the Sacraments draw from the Cross their power and their virtue.
Look at this Christian who a moment ago was quite envious of the hermit who lived solely on roots and herbs and who made the stern resolution to treat his body as harshly. Alas! A slight headache, a prick of a pin, makes him, as big and strong is he is, sorry for himself. He is very upset. He cries with pain. A moment ago he would have been willing to do all the penances of the anchorites-and the merest trifle makes him despair!
The greatest of all evils is not to be tempted because there are then grounds for believing that the Devil looks upon us as his property and that he is only awaiting our deaths to drag us into Hell.
If a mother truly had the religious spirit, she would say to herself: 'Ah! If I could only be sure of seeing this little child becoming a saint, of seeing him for all eternity by my side, singing the praises of God! What a joy that would be for me!
We should never cease to keep a watch on ourselves, lest the Devil might deceive us at the moment when we are least expecting it.
The temptations we must fear most are those of which we are not conscious.
Your vocation is to get to Heaven.
St. Katherine Drexel (1858-1955)
All Christians have a right to the grace-filled riches of the sacramental order...our Lord longs to give himself to souls.
St. Mary Margaret Alacoque (1647-1690)
I would not rest on my left side, as I was unable in that position to breathe. On one occasion, when I wished to turn to relieve my shoulder, which gave me pain. He told me that when he carried his cross he did not change it from side to side, in order to find relief. By this I understood he wished me to retrench every kind of comfort.
I have so great a desire of Holy Communion that had I to walk barefoot over flames it seems to me that it would cost me nothing compared to the loss of this happiness.
If you are in an abyss of infidelity and inconstancy, the Heart of Jesus is an abyss of constancy and fidelity. Bury yourself in It, and you will there, a love which constantly love you and seeks your goal.
Michael Garicoits (1797-1863)
In God, we have an unlimited source of strength and resolution. With His help we can do all things, but we must appear before Him with a deep sense of our utter unworthiness and abasement… Men who stand thus in an attitude of humility before God are capable of great things.
God everything, I nothing. God in his place and I in mine! This truth is so primordial that reason itself, “the wisdom of Solomon”, failing evangelical revelation, should be sufficient to enlighten us.
I am so convinced of the Pope’s infallibility that, supposing such an impossibility happened as my being offered the alternative of losing my soul on the side of papal infallibility, or saving it by disbelief in the dogma, I would not hesitate a minute but stay on the side of the Pope.
[On suicides:] Remember there is considerable distance from the bridge to the river and do not say “there goes one more reprobate”. When everything seems lost our trust should be greater, and we should try harder than ever to do God’s holy will.
Mortal sin does not terrify me in a really contrite heart; it is the lack of humility in souls that have been given grace, the lack of il in foolish virgin’s lamp, that fills hell with reprobates.
St. Salamone Le Clerq (1745-1792)
[On worldly things:] The greatest grace that God can grant a Christian is to enable himto see the worthlessness and vanity of these things, and this to lead him to seek the one sovereign good, which consists in the practice of the teaching of the gospel."
The houses of good Catholics should be like little churches.
St. Polycarp of Smyrna (69-155)
In this world it is a good thing to make a clean break with all our carnal desires; because “all the lusts of the flesh are up in arms against the Spirit”-- and because “no fornicator, pervert or sodomite will inherit the kindgom of God”-- nor anyone else of dissolute habits. Our duty, therefore, is to give everything of this kind a very wide berth, and be as obedient to our clergy as we should be to God and Christ.
To deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is to be anti-Christ.
Pray for all God’s people. Pray too for our sovereign lords, and for all governors and rulers; for any who ill-use you or dislike you; and for the enemies of the Cross.
Pope St. Clement I (died 99)
Let us be rspectful to those who have been set over us, honour our elders, and train up our young people in the fear of God; let us set our womenfolk on the road to goodness, by teaching them to be examples of loevable purity, to display real sincerity in their submissiveness, to prove the self-restraint of their tongues by observing silence, and to bestow equal affection, with no favouritism and as becomes holiness, upon all God-fearing persons.
Think, my dear friends, how the Lord offers us proof after proof that there is going to be a resurrection, of which He has made Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising him from the dead. My friends, look how regularly there are processes of resurrection going on at this very moment. The day and night show us an example of it; for night sinks to rest, and day arises; day passes away, and night comes again. Or take the fruits of the earth; how, and in what way, does a crop come into being? When the sower goes out and drops each seed into the ground, it falls to the earth shrivelled and bare, and decays; but presently the power of the Lord’s providence raises it from decay, and from that single grain a host of others spring up and yield their fruit.
Let us clothe ourselves in a mutual tolerance to each other’s views, cultivating humility and self-restraint, avoiding all gossipping and backbiting, and earning our justification by deeds and not by words.
Even the Architect and Lord of the Universe himself takes a delight in working.
The strong are not to ignore the weak, and the weak are to respect the strong.
Blessed Solanus Casey (1870-1957)
[Note to himself]
1. Detachment of oneself from earthly affections; singleness of purpose.
2. Meditation on the Passion of Jesus Christ.
3. Uniformity of will with the divine will.
4. Mental prayer, meditation and contemplation.
5. Prayer: “Ask and it shall be given you.”
With love and Christmas greetings to all
Comes the Infant once more to free us from sorrow
Whose smile and whose power and whose gentleness call
To each heart and each soul for a manger tomorrow;
Whose love and whose goodness
--Whose wonders proclaim
Him, the Son of the Virgin, as promised of yore.
Oh, may he estrange us from sin and its shame!
And reign in our hearts, as his crib evermore!
Atheism is the very climax of intellectual stupidity, or moral insanity, or diabolically devilish stupidity.
Death is the climax of all humiliation, when we must finally give up all and turn all over to God. Death can be very beautiful-- like a wedding-- if we make it so.
Were we only to correspond to God’s graces, continually being showered down on every one of us, we would be able to pass from being great sinners one day to being great saints the next. We are continually immersed in God’s merciful grace like the air that permeates us.
Gratitude is the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.
Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger.
Be as blind to the faults of your neighbours as possible, trying at least to attribute a good intention to their actions.
In my opinion there is hardly anything else that the enemy of our soul dreads more than confidence-- humble confidence in God. Confidence in God is the very soul of prayer.
St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception (1910-1946)
I consider a day on which I have not suffered a day lost to me.
I want to be careful never to reject anyone. I will only speak sweet words to others.
Grains of wheat, when ground in the mill, turn in to flour. With this flour we make the wafer of the holy Eucharist. Grapes, when crushed in the wine press, yield their juice. This juice turns into wine. Similarly, suffering so crushes us that we turn into better human beings.
St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)
Wherefore, then, O my God! do we employ our affections in loving creatures, relatives, friends, the great ones of the world, who have never suffered for us scourges, thorns, or nails, nor shed one drop of blood for us; and not in loving a God, who for love of us came down from heaven and was made man, and has shed all his blood for us in the midst of torments, and finally died of grief upon a cross, in order to win to himself our hearts!
How then does it happen that for Thyself, O Jesus! Thou hast re- served Thyself to suffer by dying in so great sadness? Ah! I know the reason ; for at this moment there were presented to his mind all the sins of the world, the blasphemies, the sacrileges, the impurities, and all the other sins that men were going to commit after his death. Each one of these sins came then as a cruel monster to tear his heart by its own malice.
Ah, my dear Saviour, behold me at Thy feet; I have been one of the most ungrateful of Thy persecutors; do Thou pray likewise for me to Thy Father to pardon me. True it is that the Jews and the executioners knew not what they were doing when they crucified Thee; but I well knew that in sinning I was offending a God who had been crucified, and had died for me.
Can you fear that he will not pardon you, when he gave himself up to death in order to pardon you?
Jesus Christ, though he could save us without suffering, wished to embrace a life of continual pain, and to suffer the cruel and ignominious death of the cross.
If each of you thought frequently on the sufferings of the Redeemer, and on the love which he has shown to us in his Passion, how could you but love him with your whole hearts?
To resist every temptation, it is sufficient to pronounce the names of Jesus and Mary; and if the temptation continues, let us continue to invoke Jesus and Mary, and the devil shall never be able to conquer us.
The saint is not afflicted, like worldlings, at the thought of being obliged to leave the goods of this earth, because he has kept his soul detached from them.
A spiritual soul gave directions that the person who should bring her the news of death should say: “Console yourself, for the time has arrived when you shall no longer offend God”. “
Without labour we cannot attain Heaven.
The rich of this world are, of all men, the most miserable; because, the more they possess, the more they desire to possess.
Let us, then, brethren, courageously bear patiently with all the sufferings which shall come upon us during the remaining days of our lives; to secure heaven they are all little and nothing. Rejoice, then; for all these pains, sorrows and persecutions shall, if we are saved, be to us a source of never-ending joys and delights.
Is it not, I ask, an evil to spend your time in plays, in conversations, and useless occupations which are unprofitable to the soul? Does God give you the time to lose it?
The promise of Jesus Christ to hear those who pray for him do not extend to all the temporal favours which we ask such as a plentiful harvest, a victory in a law-suit, or a deliverance from sickness, or from certain persecutions. These favours God grants to those who pray for them; but only when they are conducive to their spiritual welfare.
It is, above all, necessary to persevere in prayer till death, and never to cease to pray.
How many there are who, after having inadvertently given expression to a scandalous maxim, neglect to retract it (as they are bound to), through fear of losing the esteem of others!
Brethren, if we wish to save our souls, we must overcome human respect, and bear the little confusion which may arise from the scoffs of our enemies of the cross of Jesus Christ.
The more the heart is preoccupied with earthly concerns, the less room there is in it for divine love.
Let us implore the Lord to preserve us from yielding to any strong passion, and particularly to anger.
To bring up children in the discipline of the Lord, it is also necessary to take away from them the occasion of doing evil.
He that lives in sin till death shall die in sin.
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