“Be sure that you first preach by the way you live. If you do not, people will notice that you say one thing, but live otherwise, and your words will bring only cynical laughter and a derisive shake of the head.” ~St. Charles Borromeo

“What the soul is in the body, let Christians be in the world.”

~St. John Chrysostom

"Serenity is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it."

“I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right.” ~Rev. Billy Graham

"We cannot keep to ourselves the words of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for everyone, for every man and woman. It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God's grace, we ourselves have received." ~Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, 2010

“We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy, too. But I guess that's why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.” ~Shane Claiborne

Jesus says to us "you are valuable. Simply because you are, you are valuable". The birds of the air are God's creatures. God sees them and cares for them. God made them and God enjoys them. They are valuable. You, too, are God's creation, made and known by God. God sees you and cares for you. You are of great value. As we grow in our awareness that our true value is a gift already given to us by God, we can begin to let go of the tight hold we have on our substitute strategies for achieving worth. -Dale Ryan

“God doesn’t tell you to do hard things so He can stand back and laugh and watch you struggle. He tells you to do the things that He knows are gonna work out to your good in the end.” ~Joyce Meyer

Only God is awesome. ~Shane Caliborne

Prayer is walking up to an abyss, looking down, and being unable to see the bottom for there is none. You spend years balancing on the edge, almost jumping in, then retreating. At some moment, the hunger becomes too great and the thirst too flaming. You jump. You jump into the abyss, only to discover that there is no abyss, only God and his love for you. For a moment, you catch your breath in his arms. Then once again, because he loves you, he seems to elude you, so that again you might go forth to seek him. ~Catherine De Hueck Doherty

The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us? ~Dorothy Day

One of the most wonderful things about being a Christian is that I don’t ever get up in the morning and wonder if what I do matters. I live every day to the fullest because I can live it through Christ and I know no matter what I do today, I’m going to do something to advance the Kingdom of God. ~Chuck Colson

For such is the power of great minds, such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible. And so our Redeemer's visible presence has passed into the sacraments. ~St. Leo the Great

"In the resurrected and ascended Lord, our humanity, once an image and likeness of God but distorted by sin, has been restored to its ultimate place in the presence of God. . . . Let us open our hearts to the love of the risen Lord so that we too may hear his voice sending us forth to love and serve the whole creation." ~Antal Prokecz

"The whole Church, all of us are sent into the world to bring the Gospel and salvation. But the initiative is always God’s, who calls many servants that each one might do his part for the common good. Called to the ministerial priesthood, to the consecrated life, to the married life, to a task in the world, all are asked to respond with generosity to the Lord, sustained by his Word that enlightens us: “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you” (John 15:16)." ~Pope Benedict XVI, May 14, 2012

The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. ~C.S. Lewis

“We must stand up when the kingdom is attacked, belittled, misrepresented, or ignored. Individually and collectively, quietly or insistently, Christians are called to stand for Christ and his kingdom.” ~ Cardinal Donald Wuerl

The Eucharist is the heart of the Christian religion. It is an ineffable mystery that embraces the untold depths of divine love, and in which God, giving himself to us, bestows upon us all blessings and graces. ~St. Francis De Sales

Love expands you. The more you love, the more you have the capacity to love. ~Mother Mary Assumpta, OP

The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead Catholics by conviction. ~Bishop Daniel Jenky

The prayer of Jesus that we be one as He and the Father are one, that the love with which the Father has loved Him may be in us and He in us, gives us the whole program of the spiritual life. It tells us where we are going as well as how to get there. ... To be one with each other as Jesus and the Father are one! What a vista! What a project! ~Fr. Raphael Brown, OCSO

It is no exaggeration to say that providing young people with a sound education in the faith represents the most urgent internal challenge facing the Catholic community in your country. The deposit of faith is a priceless treasure which each generation must pass on to the next by winning hearts to Jesus Christ and shaping minds in the knowledge, understanding and love of his Church. ~Pope Benedict XVI

At the Eucharistic table, we are offered sacramental wine now become the blood of Jesus. The fruit of his life has become this life-giving drink, poured out for us. We take and drink, praying that the fruit of our lives may also become life-giving wine for others. ~Sandy Prather

What do I desire? What do I want? Why do I speak? Why do I live, if not for this reason: that together we might live with Christ.

~St. Augustine

Prayer is my total faith in God as my creator. I am his image, his icon, and without him, I can do nothing. Prayer is my recognition of who I really am: a saved sinner, capable of breaking my friendship with God at any given moment and even likely to revel in my breaking. When I recognize this, prayer becomes a basic necessity for my life. ~Catherine de Hueck Doherty

The peace our lord came to bring was dependent entirely upon an interior state of soul, and was wholly independent of external circumstances.

These might be favorable or not, but they could not enter into the sanctuary of the soul, its inmost and deepest shrine, where the armed man, secure; kept his court in peace. The peace of the world meant that I had all that I desired, the peace of Christ that I desired no more than all I had. The peace of the world was largeIy in its cause negative; it implied the absence, the careful removal of every form of trouble, evil, distress; it was a peace through circumstance.

But the peace of Christ depended wholly, under the grace of God, on the attitude of the soul. It was built upon a firm determination of the will never to be troubled or dismayed. It was compatible with every form of suffering, with every privation, with failure in every line of life; it was compatible even with discontent — nay, it really necessitated discontent.

The Pharisee is self-satisfied, but the Publican is never content; he realizes the great gulf fixed between what he is and what he should be; he is always leaving the things that are behind, and spurring himself onwards to the things that are more excellent.+

All the saints, all who love justice and hate iniquity, must be forever discontented, must see a great number of things ill-done by themselves and others and must be longing to restore all things in Christ. By prayer, example, encouragement, denunciation, we have all labored to bring in the reign of justice, yet are conscious of how much still remains to be done. Yet despite this chronic state of discontent, the heart should be at peace. ~Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.

Truly, matters in the world are in a bad state; but if you and I begin in earnest to reform ourselves, a really good beginning will have been made. ~St. Peter of Alcantara, 1499-1562

“Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.” ~Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman