Many people would like to attain union with God but they cannot bear the contradictions he sends them. They hate the sickness which strikes them, or the poverty they suffer, or the insults they receive. Since they cannot be resigned, they never succeed in reaching total union with God.

-- St. Alphonsus Liguori

No one is a martyr for a conclusion, no one is a martyr for an opinion; it is faith that makes martyrs.

-- John Henry Cardinal Newman

When we find ourselves being carried away by anger or tempted by some other passion, let us reflect on what privileges we have been granted, what Spirit it is whose presence we enjoy, and this thought will check in us those unruly passions.

-- St John Chrysostom

Everyone, past, present and future will be judged. Now, then, is the time for mercy, while the time to come will be the time for justice only. For that reason, the present times is ours to repent, but the future time will be God's alone for judgment. While there is breath there is hope.

To rely on our talents is a cause of great loss. When someone places confidence in his own prudence, knowledge, and intelligence, God, To make him know and see his insufficiency, withdraws from him His help and leaves him to work by himself. This is often why our undertakings miserably fail.

If you see that you have not yet suffered tribulations, consider it certain that you have not begun to be a true servant of God; for the Apostle says plainly that all who choose to live piously in Christ, shall suffer persecutions.

Souls eager to arrive at union with God must accept, without excusing themselves, every correction or rebuke, even if not wholly deserved, and even if wholly unjust. It takes great humility to find oneself unjustly condemned and be silent, and to do this is to imitate the Lord, who set us free from all our sins.

-- St Teresa of Avila

The merit of crosses does not consist in their weight, but the manner in which they are borne. It may show greater virtue to bear a cross of straw than a very hard and heavy one because the light ones are also the most hidden and therefore least comfortable to our inclination, which always seeks what is showy.

-- St Francis de Sales

The Lord sends us tribulation and infirmities to give us the means of paying the immense debts we have contracted with Him. Those who have good sense receive them joyfully, for they think more of the good which they derive from them than of the pain they experience on account of them.

-- St Vincent Ferrer

One who wishes to become holy ought not, except in a few cases, to excuse himself, although that for which he is blamed be not true. Jesus Christ acted as such. He heard Himself charged with evil which He had not done, but said not a word to free Himself from the disgrace.

-- St Philip Neri

The life of the desire for esteem and respect is to be well thought of by everyone; its death, therefore, is to hide ourselves so as not to be known, by means of continual acts of humility and self-abasement. Until one succeeds in dying in this manner, God will never be able to perfectly live within him.

-- St Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi

True detachment leads us to be very generous with God and with our fellow men. It makes us actively resourceful and ready to spend ourselves in helping the needy.

-- St Josemaria Escriva

Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He may prolong my life, He may shorten it, He knows what He is about. He may make my spirits sink, hide the future from me, still He knows what He is about.

-- John Henry Cardinal Newman

Always look forward and never look back.

-- Bl. Junipero Serra

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

-- St Augustine

Who loves God, finds pleasure in everything; who not loves God, finds no true pleasure in anything

-- St Alphonsus Liguori

The very tradition, teaching, and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, was preached by the apostles and was preserved by the Fathers. On this was the Church founded, and if anyone departs from this, he neither is, nor any longer ought to be called, a Christian.

-- St Athanasius

For us to reach God, Christ is the way; but Christ is on the Cross, and to climb up to the Cross, we must have our hearts free, not tied to earthly things. For our Lord said, " Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

You have got to love while your suffering and suffer while you're loving.

-- St John Vianney

A Christian is not his own master, since all his time belongs to God. Time takes no holidays.

-- St Ignatius of Antioch

What, then, does God watch with pleasure and delight? The man that is fighting for Him against riches, against the world, against hell, against himself.

-- St Louis de Montfort

God said: I have placed you in the midst of your fellows so that you may do to them what you cannot do to Me - that is, so that you may love your neighbor freely without expecting any return from him. And what you do to him I count it done to Me.

-- St Catherine of Siena

Can you expect to go to heaven for nothing? Did not our Savior track the whole way to it with His tears and blood? And yet you start at every little pain.

-- St Elizabeth Ann Seton