My confidence is placed in God who does not need our help for accomplishing his designs. Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to the work and to be faithful to him, and not to spoil his work by our shortcomings.

-- St Isaac Jogues

The first end I propose in our daily work is to do the will of God; secondly, to do it in the manner he wills it; and thirdly to do it because it is his will.

-- St Elizabeth Ann Seton

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 meekness of Jesus scored its greatest triumph in His virtue of silence. Jesus, who came to regenerate the world, began by keeping silence in public for thirty years. And yet there were so many vices to reform in the world, so many wandering souls to bring back. Our Lord reproves no one. He is content with praying, with doing penance, and with resisting evil and asking God's pardon for it. Oh! What a lesson against rash judgments!

-- St. Peter Eymard

In this holy abandonment springs up that beautiful freedom of spirit which the perfect possess, and in which there is found all the happiness that can be desired in this life; for in fearing nothing, and seeking and desiring nothing of all things of the world, they possess all.

-- St. Teresa of Avila

I have no greater desire to die than to live; if Our Lord gave me the choice I would choose nothing; I only will what He wills; It is what He does that I love.

-- St. Therese of Lisieux

It was His Will that after His death the Church should give us His image in the crucifix, that he might appear to us in a condition of utmost ignominy. And why? He did it because He knew the worth of humility and the danger of the sin which opposes it.

-- St. Vincent de Paul

Into your hands Lord I commend my Spirit.

-- St. Stephen

Mary is more blessed because she embraces faith in Christ than because she conceives the flesh of Christ.

-- St. Augustine, De virginitate 3

The liturgy then is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. It involves the presentation of man's sanctification under the guise of signs perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each of these signs. In it full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members. From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.

-- Sacrosanctum concilium

You should permit yourself to be tormented by every kind of martyrdom before you allow yourself to committ a mortal sin.

-- King St. Louis IX of France

There is a certain love deeply seated in our nature that imperceptibly knits together these bodies of ours. Nothing so welds our life together as the love of man and wife.

-- St. John Chrysostom

God created man to be straightforward, but he has entangled himself with an infinity of questions.

-- St. John of Damascus

The heart is rich when it is content, and it is content when its desires are set upon God's Will.

-- St. Miguel of Ecuador

All who undertake to teach must be endowed with deep love, the greatest of patience, and, most of all, profound humility. They must perform their work with earnest zeal. Then, through their humble prayers, the Lord will find them worthy to become fellow workers with him in the cause of truth. He will console them in the fulfillment of this most noble duty, and finally, will enrich them with the gift of heaven.

-- Saint Joseph Calasanz

If we love God and are faithful to Him, we shall be at peace, and this peace will endure.

-- St. Madeline Sophie Barat

Go to Jesus. He loves you and is waiting for you to give you many graces. He is on the altar surrounded by angels adoring and praying. Let them make some room for you and join them in doing what they do.

-- St. Mary Joseph Rossello

To harbor no envy, no anger, no resentment against an offender is still not to have charity for him. It is possible, without any charity, to avoid rendering evil for evil. But to render, spontaneously, good for evil - such belongs to a perfect spiritual love.

-- St. Maximus the Confessor

It is a matter of real sorrow when God has given those strength to break stronger fetters, those of vanity and sin, that they neglect their own progress and the attainment of such great blessings because they will not detach themselves from trifles. Not only do they not advance, they fall back. For it is well known that on the spiritual road not to go on overcoming self is to go backwards, and not to increase our gain is to lose.As wood can never be transformed into fire if one necessary degree of heat is missing, so the soul that has even one imperfection can never be perfectly transformed in God.

-- St. John of the Cross

The first temptation, my dear brethren, which the Devil tries on anyone who has begun to serve God better is in the matter of human respect. He will no longer dare to be seen around; he will hide himself from those with whom heretofore had been mixing and pleasure seeking. If he should be told that he has changed a lot, he will be ashamed of it! What people are going to say about him is continually in his mind, to the extent that he no longer has enough courage to do good before other people. If the Devil cannot get him back through human respect, he will induce an extraordinary fear to possess him that his confessions are not good, that his confessor does not understand him, that whatever he does will be all in vain, that he will be damned just the same, that he will achieve the same result in the end by letting everything slide as by continuing to fight, because the occasions of sin will prove too many for him.

-- St. John Vianney

Strive to acquire the virtues you think your brothers lack, and then you will no longer see their defects, because you yourselves will not have them.

-- St. Augustine

Take heed not to foster thy own judgment, for, without doubt, it will inebriate thee; as there is no difference between an intoxicated man and one full of his own opinion, and one is no more capable of reasoning than the other.

-- St. Francis de Sales

The rosary is said not with the lips alone, muttering Hail Marys one after the other. … For a Christian vocal prayer must spring from the heart, so that while the rosary is said, the mind can enter into contemplation of each one of the mysteries.

-- St. Josemaria Escriva

Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

-- Matt. 16:16-19

Spiritual joy arises from purity of the heart and perseverance in prayer.

-- St. Francis of Assisi

She was full of faith, yet all her life had been tormented by thoughts against it. While apparently enjoying the peace and easiness of mind of souls who have reached a high state of virtue, she suffered such interior trials that she often told me her mind was so filled with all sorts of temptations and abominations that she had to strive not to look within herself...But for all that suffering her face never lost its serenity, nor did she once relax in the fidelity God asked of her. And so I regard her as one of he holiest souls I have ever met on this earth.

-- St. Francis de Sales (speaking of St. Jane Frances de Chantal)

God must be loved first, in order that one's neighbor, too, may be loved in God.

-- St Bernard

For His exceeding charity wherewith God loved us He sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.

-- Romans viii. 3

Look what fame he had, what a worldwide following gathered around him! But why? Perhaps because he was a philosopher? Because he was wise? Because he had resources at his disposal? Because he said Mass humbly, heard confessions from dawn to dusk and was-it is not easy to say it-one who bore the wounds of our Lord. He was a man of prayer and suffering.

-- Pope Paul VI (21 Feb. 1971) commenting on the life of Padre Pio

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him "Follow me." And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.

-- Lk 5:27-28

Nothing seems tiresome or painful when you are working for a Master who pays well; who rewards even a cup of cold water given for love of Him.

-- St Dominic Savio