Keeping It Catholic—The Blog!: A Few Steps from Sanctity

Friday, March 5, 2010

A Few Steps from Sanctity

It is almost literally true, though it sounds like a paradox, that many good ordinary Christians are only a few steps from sanctity. If they would be but a little better, they could enter the ranks of the heroic servants of God and be numbered among His intimate friends.

It is, indeed, one of the tragedies of the spiritual life that there are so few great lovers of God, when to love Him greatly is so easy, so plain and so simple an achievement. And the reason why the number of God's great and devoted servants is not greater is precisely this, that so many of us refuse to become just a little better than we are.
~From Your Soul's Salvation, 1920

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An easily-readable, stimulating, and spiritually inspiring work, the book examines what Pope Benedict XVI called “Fatima’s prophetic mission,” quoting from Divine Revelation and Church Doctors and providing the necessary insight into the meanings of the many mysterious signs seen or heard at Fatima (a cloud, a golden orb, rainbow colors or stars in the sky, etc.) through the months of June-October, 1917.

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A CATHOLIC CLASSIC!
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Infallible Inspiration

"We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundation and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels, and miscreants. OMNIA INSTAURARE IN CHRISTO. ("To restore all things in Christ.")

~Our Apostolic Mandate on the Sillon, 1910
Issued by the only canonized pontiff in 500 years,
Pope St. Pius X

"Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it."
~The Holy Bible, Psalm 126:1

On Charity

Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.
~Mt 22: 36-40

And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.
~1 Cor 13: 13

But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection...
~Col 3:14

Now the end of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith.
~1 Tim 1:5

But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity. Mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law.
~Gal 5:22-23

For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy.
~1 John 5:3

Charity is defined as the greatest of the theological virtues, by which we first love God above all things for His own sake and our neighbor as ourselves, for the love of God.
~My Catholic Home Encyclopedia, 1953

On understanding true charity in friendship:
“Not everyone who spares is a friend, nor is everyone who strikes an enemy.”
~St. Augustine (Ep. 93)

"Charity may be a very short word, but with its tremendous meaning of pure love, it sums up man's entire relation to God and to his neighbor."
~St. Aelred of Rievaulx

"Charity unites us to God. . . . There is nothing mean in charity, nothing arrogant. Charity knows no schism, does not rebel, does all things in concord. In charity all the elect of God have been made perfect. "
~Pope St. Clement I

"Charity is a greater virtue than obedience. "
~St. Thomas Aquinas

"Love God, serve God: everything is in that."
~St. Clare of Assisi

"So greatly does His Majesty love us that He will reward the love we show to our neighbors by increasing our love of Himself and that in a thousand ways."
~St. Teresa of Avila

"At the end of our lives, we shall all be judged by charity."
~St. John of the Cross

"It is an act of charity to cry out against the wolf when he is among the sheep."
~St. Francis de Sales

"O most loving Word of God, teach me to be generous, to serve You as You deserve: to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for any other reward save that of knowing that I do Your holy will."
~St. Ignatius of Loyola

"God gave Himself to you; give yourself to God."
~Blessed Robert Southwell

"The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist."
~Pope St. Gregory the Great

"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

"You cannot please both God and the world at the same time, They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions."
~St. John-Marie Vianney, Curé of Ars

Keeping It Catholic—The Blog!

Friday, March 5, 2010

A Few Steps from Sanctity

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Other Articles by Marianna Bartold

Three Theological Virtues: The Greatest is Charity

On Charity