‘I did once say that to me art and the saints are the greatest apologetics for our faith.’
Pope Benedict XVI
‘If you learn everything except Christ, you learn nothing. If you learn nothing except Christ, you learn everything.’
St. Bonaventure
‘The absolute is a sphere whose center is nowhere and whose circumference is everywhere.’
St. Bonaventure
‘To know much and taste nothing-of what use is that?’
St. Bonaventure
‘We believe that Mary opens the abyss of God’s mercy to whomsoever she wills, when she wills, and as she wills; so that there is no sinner however great who is lost if Mary protects him.’
St. Bonaventure
‘One evening, not knowing how to tell Jesus how much I loved Him and longed for Him to be served and honoured everywhere, I thought with sadness that not a single act of love ever ascended from the gulfs of hell. I cried that I would gladly be plunged into that realm of blasphemy and pain so that even there He could be loved forever. Of course that could not glorify Him, for all He wants is our happiness, yet when one’s in love one says a thousand silly things. This didn’t mean that I did not want to be in heaven, but for me heaven meant love and, in my ardour, I felt that nothing could separate me from Him who had captivated me.’
St. Therese of Lisieux
‘Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good an accident; good is so good, that we feel certain that evil could be explained.’
G.K. Chesterton
‘Crosses, contempt, sorrows and afflictions are the real treasures of the lovers of Jesus Christ crucified.’
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
‘As long as this attachment remains, it is impossible to make progress in perfection, even though the imperfection be very small. It makes little difference whether a bird is tied by a thin thread or by a cord. Even if it is tied by a thread, the bird will be held bound… it will be impeded from flying as long as it does not break the thread.’
St. John of the Cross
‘Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”‘
Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium n. 3)
‘Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.’
Pope Benedict XVI
‘This world has a higher meaning that transcends its worries or nothing is true but those worries.’
Albert Camus
‘I prefer a church that is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out in the streets rather that a church that is unhealthy from being confined and clinging to its own security.’
Pope Francis
‘I was to cling to nothing, to empty and despoil myself of everything, to love nothing but Him, in Him and for the love of Him, to see in all things naught but Him and the interests of His glory in complete forgetfulness of self.’
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
As A Little Child 