We Must Have A Real Living Determination To Reach Holiness...

We must have a real living determination to reach holiness. I will be a saint means I will despoil myself of all that is not God; I will strip my heart of all created things; I will live in poverty and detachment; I will renounce my will, my inclinations, my whims and fancies, and make myself a willing slave to the will of God. - Blessed Mother Teresa

Looking Through This Distorted World's Lenses

The world in which we now live is a world whose outlook is so distorted that we absolutize what is relative (money-making, power, success) and relativize what is absolute (truth, moral values, and God). Power, riches, fame, success, and dominance are idolized; humility, chastity, modesty, self-sacrifice, and service are looked down upon as signs of weakness. - Doctor Alice von Hildebrand

Man Finds Himself Betwixt A Twofold Gravitational Force

The Fathers of the Church maintained that human beings stand at the point of intersection between two gravitational fields. First, there is the force of gravity which pulls us down – towards selfishness, falsehood and evil; the gravity which diminishes us and distances us from the heights of God. On the other hand there is the gravitational force of God’s love: the fact that we are loved by God and respond in love attracts us upwards. Man finds himself betwixt this twofold gravitational force; everything depends on our escaping the gravitational field of evil and becoming free to be attracted completely by the gravitational force of God, which makes us authentic, elevates us and grants us true freedom. - Pope Benedict XVI

How Many There Are Who Shrink From Whatever Requires Manhood

How many there are, who love to live delicately and shrink from whatever requires manhood. - Pope Leo XIII

They That Follow Their Sensuality Defile Their Conscience

Study, therefore, to withdraw thy heart from the love of visible things, and to turn thyself to things invisible. For they that follow their sensuality defile their conscience and lose the grace of God. - Thomas a Kempis

Our Very Perfection Lies in Diligently Contending Against Our Imperfections

The work of the soul’s purification neither may nor can end save with life itself;—do not then let us be disheartened by our imperfections,—our very perfection lies in diligently contending against them, and it is impossible so to contend without seeing them, or to overcome without meeting them face toe face. Our victory does not consist in being insensible to them, but in not consenting to them. Now to be afflicted by our imperfections is certainly not to consent thereto, and for the furtherance of humility it is needful that we sometimes find ourselves worsted in this spiritual battle, wherein, however, we shall never be conquered until we lose either life or courage. Moreover, imperfections and venial sins cannot destroy our spiritual life, which is only to be lost through mortal sin; consequently we have only need to watch well that they do not imperil our courage. David continually asks the Lord to strengthen his heart against cowardice and discouragement; and it is our privilege in this war that we are certain to vanquish so long as we are willing to fight. - Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis of Sales

Fighting For Him Against Riches, Against The World, Hell, And Himself

What, then does God look upon with pleasure and delight? What is He asking the Angels about, and even the devils? It is about the man who is fighting for Him against riches, against the world, hell, and himself, the man who is cheerfully carrying his cross. - Saint Louis-Marie De Montfort

You Have Time to Exercise but no Time to Pray?

‎It is not particularly difficult to find thousands who will spend two or three hours a day exercising, but if you ask them to bend their knees to God for five minutes of prayer, they protest that it is too long. – Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Look Upon Every Temptation as an Invitation to Grow

Do not grieve over the temptations you suffer. When the Lord intends to bestow a particular virtue on us, He often permits us first to be tempted by the opposite vice. Therefore, look upon every temptation as an invitation to grow in a particular virtue and a promise by God that you will be successful, if only you stand fast. - Saint Philip Neri

Truth is a Discovery of the One Who Never Fails Us

‎Truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust...seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ...authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in - nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ's very being for others. - Pope Benedict XVI

Christ Commands Perfection

Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. - Jesus Christ

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Lead me to the Cross Where Your Love Poured Out

Lead me to the cross where Your love poured out. Bring me to my knees, Lord I lay me down. Rid me of myself, I belong to You. Lead me, lead me to the cross. - Chris and Conrad

Now, Turn Back and Search For Him Ten Times as Hard

As by your will you first strayed away from God, so now turn back and search for him ten times as hard; for as he brought down those disasters on you, so will he rescue you and give you eternal joy. - Baruch 4:28-29

Perfection Consists in One Thing Alone, Which is Doing the Will of God.

Perfection consists in one thing alone, which is doing the will of God. For, according to Our Lord’s words, it suffices for perfection to deny self, to take up the cross and to follow Him. Now who denies himself and takes up his cross and follows Christ better than he who seeks not to do his own will, but always that of God? Behold, now, how little is needed to become as Saint? Nothing more than to acquire the habit of willing, on every occasion, what God wills. - St. Vincent de Paul

United in Love

Be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people’s interests instead. - Philippians 2:2-4

No Peace in the Carnal Man

True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. There is no peace in the carnal man, in the man given to vain attractions, but there is peace in the fervent and spiritual man. - Imitation

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Source of Holiness

If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life. - St. Gregory of Nyssa

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy,* drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another. - Galatians 5:16-26

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