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Modern Prophets Say That Our Economics Have Failed Us. No! It Is Not Our Economics Which Have Failed; It Is Man Who Has Failed-man Who Has Forgotten God. Hence No Manner Of Economic Or Political Readjustment Can Possibly Save Our Civilization; We Can Be Saved Only By A Renovation Of The Inner Man, Only By A Purging Of Our Hearts And Souls; For Only By Seeking First The Kingdom Of God And His Justice Will All These Other Things Be Added Unto Us.

-Fulton J. Sheen

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Modern Prophets Say That

Fulton J. Sheen

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Modern Prophets Say That Our Economics Have Failed Us. No! It Is Not Our Economics Which Have Failed; It Is Man Who Has Failed-man Who Has Forgotten God. Hence No Manner Of Economic Or Political Readjustment Can Possibly Save Our Civilization; We Can Be Saved Only By A Renovation Of The Inner Man, Only By A Purging Of Our Hearts And Souls; For Only By Seeking First The Kingdom Of God And His Justice Will All These Other Things Be Added Unto Us.

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All Worry Is Atheism, Because It Is A Want Of Trust In God.

Show Me Your Hands. Do They Have Scars From Giving? Show Me Your Feet. Are They Wounded In Service? Show Me Your Heart. Have You Left A Place For Divine Love?

God Has Given Different Gifts To Different People. There Is No Basis For Feeling Inferior To Another Who Has A Different Gift. Once It Is Realized That We Shall Be Judged By The Gift We Have Received, Rather Than The Gift We Have Not, One Is Completely Delivered From A False Sense Of Inferiority.

The Simple Shepherds Heard The Voice Of An Angel And Found Their Lamb; The Wise Men Saw The Light Of A Star And Found Their Wisdom.

Fasting Detaches You From This World. Prayer Reattaches You To The Next World.

Never Measure Your Generosity By What You Give, But Rather By What You Have Left.

The Difference Between The Love Of A Man And The Love Of A Woman Is That A Man Will Always Give Reasons For Loving, But A Woman Gives No Reasons For Loving.

...discussion Is Also A Most Excellent Means To Avoid -decision-

If You Don't Behave As You Believe, You Will End By Believing As You Behave.

There Are 200 Million Poor In The World Who Would Gladly Take The Vow Of Poverty If They Could Eat, Dress And Have A Home Like I Do

Joy Is The Happiness Of Love - Love Aware Of Its Own Inner Happiness. Pleasure Comes From Without, And Joy Comes From Within, And It Is, Therefore, Within Reach Of Everyone In The World.

The Mark Of The Christian Is The Willingness To Look For The Divine In The Flesh Of A Babe In A Crib, The Continuing Christ Under The Appearance Of Bread On An Altar, And A Meditation And A Prayer On A String Of Beads

The Way Not To Lead A Monotonous Life Is To Live For Others.

Monotonous Life

Live For Others

Sin Is A Disproportionate Seriousness.

If You Do Not Live Out Your Faith Enthusiastically, Maybe You Don't Have Any Faith.

Many Married Women Who Have Deliberately Spurned The "hour" Of Childbearing Are Unhappy And Frustrated. They Never Discovered The Joys Of Marriage Because They Refused To Surrender To The Obligation Of Their State. In Saving Themselves, They Lost Themselves!

Communism Is An Aggressive Religion Of The Species.

Man Is Incurably Curious.

Men Work Harder And More Readily When They Labor On That Which Is Their Own.

Education Lays Hold Of What Is Best In A Person, But Character Lays Hold Of What Is Worse. It Takes Hold Of A Failing And By Very Skillful Manipulation And Training Turns It Into A Perfection.

We Can Think Of Lent As A Time To Eradicate Evil Or Cultivate Virtue, A Time To Pull Up Weeds Or To Plant Good Seeds. Which Is Better Is Clear, For The Christian Ideal Is Always Positive Rather Than Negative. A Person Is Great Not By The Ferocity Of His Hatred Of Evil, But By The Intensity Of His Love For God. Asceticism And Mortification Are Not The Ends Of A Christian Life; They Are Only The Means. The End Is Charity. Penance Merely Makes An Opening In Our Ego In Which The Light Of God Can Pour. As We Deflate Ourselves, God Fills Us. And It Is God’s Arrival That Is The Important Event.

The Greatest Love Story Of All Time Is Contained In A Tiny White Host.

There Is No Word More "dangerous" Than Liberalism, Because To Oppose It Is The New "unforgivable Sin."

Unforgivable Sin

You Have A Chance To Move In Far Better Society Than The Joneses. Why Worry About Keeping Up With The Joneses? Keep Up With The Angels And You'll Be Far Wiser And Happier.

Most Of Us Do Not Like To Look Inside Ourselves For The Same Reason We Don't Like To Open A Letter That Has Bad News.

The Danger Today Is In Believing There Are No Sick People, There Is Only A Sick Society.

Not Only Were The Jews Expecting The Birth Of A Great King, A Wise Man And A Saviour, But Plato And Socrates Also Spoke Of The Logos And Of The Universal Wise Man 'yet To Come'. Confucius Spoke Of 'the Saint'; The Sibyls, Of A 'universal King'; The Greek Dramatist, Of A Saviour And Redeemer To Unloose Man From The 'primal Eldest Curse'. All These Were On The Gentile Side Of The Expectation. What Separates Christ From All Men Is That First He Was Expected; Even The Gentiles Had A Longing For A Deliverer, Or Redeemer. This Fact Alone Distinguishes Him From All Other Religious Leaders.

All Our Anxieties Relate To Time.

Buddha Wrote A Code Which He Said Would Be Useful To Guide Men In Darkness, But He Never Claimed To Be The Light Of The World. Buddhism Was Born With A Disgust For The World, When A Prince's Son Deserted His Wife And Child, Turning From The Pleasures Of Existence To The Problems Of Existence. Burnt By The Fires Of The World, And Already Weary With It, Buddha Turned To Ethics.

Charity Is To Be Measured, Not By What One Has Given Away, But By What One Has Left.

As A Man Must Be Born Before He Can Begin To Lead His Physical Life, So He Must Be Born To Lead A Divine Life. That Birth Occurs In The Sacrament Of Baptism. To Survive, He Must Be Nourished By Divine Life; That Is Done In The Sacrament Of The Holy Eucharist.

The Forgiveness Of God Is One Thing, But The Proof That We Want That Forgiveness Is The Energy We Expend To Make Amends For The Wrong.

It Was To A Virgin Woman That The Birth Of The Son Of God Was Announced. It Was To A Fallen Woman That His Resurrection Was Announced.

Our Generosity Is Measured Not By What We Give But By What We Keep.

Advertising Tries To Stimulate Our Sensuous Desires, Converting Luxuries Into Necessities, But It Only Intensifies Man's Inner Misery. The Business World Is Bent On Creating Hungers Which Its Wares Never Satisfy, And Thus It Adds To The Frustrations And Broken Minds Of Our Times.

In All Human Love It Must Be Realized That Every Man Promises A Woman, And Every Woman Promises A Man That Which Only God Alone Can Give, Namely, Perfect Happiness. One Of The Reasons Why So Many Marriages Are Shipwrecked Is Because As The Young Couple Leave The Altar, They Fail To Realize That Human Feelings Tire And The Enthusiasm Of The Honeymoon Is Not The Same As The More Solid Happiness Of Enduring Human Love. One Of The Greatest Trials Of Marriage Is The Absence Of Solitude. In The First Moments Of Human Love, One Does Not See The Little Hidden Deformities Which Later On Appear.

Criticism Of Others Is Thus An Oblique Form Of Self-commendation. We Think We Make The Picture Hang Straight On Our Wall By Telling Our Neighbors That All His Pictures Are Crooked.

Today (1950), The Hatred Of The Moslem Countries Against The West Is Becoming Hatred Against Christianity Itself. Although The Statesmen Have Not Yet Taken It Into Account, There Is Still Grave Danger That The Temporal Power Of Islam May Return And, With It, The Menace That It May Shake Off A West Which Has Ceased To Be Christian, And Affirm Itself As A Great Anti-christian World Power.

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Do Mathematics Have A Relation To Reality Or Are They Only A Mathematical Symbol?

Our Happiest Times Are Those In Which We Forget Ourselves, Usually In Being Kind To Someone Else. That Tiny Moment Of Self-abdication Is An Act Of True Humility: The Man Who Loses Himself Finds Himself And Finds His Happiness.

The Workmen In A Factory May Have A Shadowy, Unknown Absentee "employer" - The Thousands Of Individual Owners Of Stock - Whom "management" Represents And Tries To Please By Extra Dividends. The Workman's Livelihood Is At The Disposition Of Strangers Who Make A Single Demand Of Their Representatives: Higher Profits.

How Could Science Be An Enemy Of Religion When God Commanded Man To Be A Scientist The Day He Told Him To Rule The Earth And Subject It?

One Function Of The Angels Is Illumination, And The Other Function Is That Of Being A Guardian.

Truth Must Be Sought At All Costs, But Separate Isolated Truths Will Not Do. Truth Is Like Life; It Has To Be Taken On Its Entirety Or Not At All. . . . We Must Welcome Truth Even If It Reproaches And Inconveniences Us -- Even If It Appears In The Place Where We Thought It Could Not Be Found.

Most Commit The Same Mistake With God That They Do With Their Friends: They Do All The Talking.

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Patience Is Power. Patience Is Not An Absence Of Action; Rather It Is "timing" It Waits On The Right Time To Act, For The Right Principles And In The Right Way.

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Unless There Is A Good Friday In Your Life, There Can Be No Easter Sunday.

There Are Two Ways Of Waking Up In The Morning. One Is To Say, 'good Morning, God,' And The Other Is To Say, 'good God, Morning'!

Morning Inspirational

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Everything That Is Full Of Life Loves Change, For The Characteristic Of Life Is Movement Toward A New Goal And Urges Toward New Pleasures

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Knowing Belongs To Man's Intellect Or Reason; Loving Belongs To His Will. The Object Of The Intellect Is Truth; The Object Of The Will Is Goodness Or Love.

Too Many People Get Credit For Being Good, When They Are Only Being Passive. They Are Too Often Praised For Being Broadminded When They Are So Broadminded They Can Never Make Up Their Minds About Anything.

To Tell A Woman Who Is Forty, "you Look Like Sixteen," Is Boloney. The Blarney Way Of Saying It Is "tell Me How Old You Are, I Should Like To Know At What Age Women Are The Most Beautiful.

The Mark Of Man Is Initiative, But The Mark Of Woman Is Cooperation. Man Talks About Freedom; Woman About Sympathy, Love, Sacrifice. Man Cooperates With Nature; Woman Cooperates With God. Man Was Called To Till The Earth, To "rule Over The Earth"; Woman To Be The Bearer Of A Life That Comes From God.

Skeptics Always Want Miracles Such As Stepping Down From The Cross, But Never The Greater Miracle Of Forgiveness.

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Tolerance Is An Attitude Of Reasoned Patience Towards Evil And A Forbearance That Restrains Us From Showing Anger Or Inflicting Punishment. But What Is More Important Than The Definition Is The Field Of Its Application. The Important Point Here Is This: Tolerance Applies Only To Persons But Never To Truth. Intolerance Applies Only To Truth But Never To Persons. Tolerance Applies To The Erring; Intolerance To The Error.

As Long As The Decent People Refuse To Believe That Morality Must Manifest Itself In Every Sphere Of Human Activity, Including The Political, They Will Not Meet The Challenge Of Marxism.

Science Is Not Wisdom.

A Teacher Who Cannot Explain Any Abstract Subject To A Child Does Not Himself Thoroughly Understand His Subject; If He Does Not Attempt To Break Down His Knowledge To Fit The Child's Mind, He Does Not Understand Teaching.

Communism Is The Final Logic Of The Dehumanization Of Man. The Industrial Civilization Of The Western World Has No Intent To Destroy Man's Freedom Or To Deny His Personality. But Communism Does. Denying God, It Reduces Man To A Robot.

Joy Is Not The Same As Pleasure Or Happiness. A Wicked And Evil Man May Have Pleasure, While Any Ordinary Mortal Is Capable Of Being Happy. Pleasure Generally Comes From Things, And Always Through The Senses; Happiness Comes From Humans Through Fellowship. Joy Comes From Loving God And Neighbor. Pleasure Is Quick And Violent, Like A Flash Of Lightning. Joy Is Steady And Abiding, Like A Fixed Star. Pleasure Depends On External Circumstances, Such As Money, Food, Travel, Etc. Joy Is Independent Of Them, For It Comes From A Good Conscience And Love Of God.

When The Record Of Any Human Life Is Set Down, There Are Three Pairs Of Eyes Who See It In A Different Light. There Is The Life As I See It. As Others See It, And As God Sees It.

Satan Always Tempts The Pure - The Others Are Already His.

The Mind Has Three Operations: The Formation Of Ideas, Judgements And Reasoning.

Democracy Cannot Survive Where There Is Such Uniformity That Everyone Wears Exactly The Same Intellectual Uniform Or Point Of View. Democracy Implies Diversity Of Outlook, A Variety Of Points Of View On Politics, Economics, And World Affairs. Hence The Educational Ideal Is Not Uniformity But Unity, For Unity Allows Diversity Of Points Of View Regarding The Good Means To A Good End.

Faced With Such Insecurity, Labor Unions Seek A Solution In Demands For Higher Wages, Shorter Hours, Pensions, And Such Things. But This Approach Takes Monopolistic Capitalism For Granted, And Accepts The Unnatural Division Between Property And Responsibility As Permanent. A Much More Radical Solution Is Apt To Come, And This May Take Either Of Two Forms.

The Power Of The Rosary Is Beyond Description.

Praying The Rosary

Obedience To Truth Is Obedience To Love.

To Fall In Love Means To Fall Into Something... And That Something Is Responsibility.

Falling In Love

Modern Man Has So Long Preached A Doctrine Of False Tolerance; He Has So Long Believed That Right And Wrong Were Only Differences In A Point Of View, That Now When Evil Works Itself Out In Practice He Is Paralyzed To Do Anything Against It.

Other People Are Like A Mirror Which Reflects Back On Us The Kind Of Image We Cast.

Remember That Every Science Is Based Upon An Abstraction. An Abstraction Is Taking A Point Of View Or Looking At Things Under A Certain Aspect Or From A Particular Angle.

God Could Not Keep, As It Were, The Secret Of His Love, And The Telling Of It Was Creation.

There Are Angels Near You To Guide You And Protect You, If You Would But Invoke Them. It Is Not Later Than We Think, It Is A Bigger World Than We Think.

Hearing Is The Motion Of Molecules; Sound Is A Wave In The Atmosphere; Solidity Is The Characteristic Of Spatial Juxtaposition Of Atoms; Smell Is Something Given Off By A Body, Rather Than Something Belonging To A Body.

No Man Hates God Without First Hating Himself.

Whenever Man Attempts To Do What He Knows To Be The Master's Will, A Power Will Be Given Him Equal To The Duty.

Evil Is Thus A Kind Of Parasite On Goodness. If There Were No Good By Which To Measure Things, Evil Could Not Exist. Men Sometimes Forget This, And Say, There Is So Much Evil In The World That There Cannot Be A God. They Are Forgetting That, If There Were No God, They Would Have No Way Of Distinguishing Evil From Goodness. The Very Concept Of Evil Admits And Recognizes A Standard, A Whole, A Rule, An Order. Nobody Would Say That His Automobile Was Out Of Order If He Did Not Have A Conception Of How An Automobile Ought To Run.

His Words Even Imply That Philanthropy Has Deeper Depths Than Is Generally Realized. The Great Emotions Of Compassion And Mercy Are Traced To Him; There Is More To Human Deeds Than The Doers Are Aware. He Identified Every Act Of Kindness As An Expression Of Sympathy With Himself. All Kindnesses Are Either Done Explicitly Or Implicitly In His Name, Or They Are Refused Explicitly Or Implicitly In His Name.

The World Is Living Today In What Might Be Described As An Era Of Carnality, Which Glorifies Sex, Hates Restraint, Identifies Purity With Coldness, Innocence With Ignorance, And Turns Men And Women Into Buddhas With Their Eyes Closed, Hands Folded Across Their Breasts, Intently Looking Inward, Thinking Only Of Self.

Each Of Us Comes Into Life With Fists Closed, Set For Aggressiveness And Acquisition. But When We Abandon Life Our Hands Are Open; There Is Nothing On Earth That We Need, Nothing The Soul Can Take With It.

Wars Come From Egotism And Selfishness. Every Macrocosmic Or World War Has Its Origin In Microcosmic Wars Going On Inside Millions And Millions Of Individuals.

When A Child Is Given To His Parents, A Crown Is Made For That Child In Heaven, And Woe To The Parents Who Raise A Child Without Consciousness Of That Eternal Crown!

Books Are The Most Wonderful Friends In The World. When You Meet Them And Pick Them Up, They Are Always Ready To Give You A Few Ideas. When You Put Them Down, They Never Get Mad; When You Take Them Up Again, They Seem To Enrich You All The More.

No Man Discovers Anything Big If He Does Not Make Himself Small.

If There Is Continuity In The Universe, It Is Fitting That There Should Be Intelligent Beings Without Bodies Which Are Called Angels.

Grace Does Not Work Like A Penny In A Slot Machine. Grace Will Move You Only When You Want It To Move You, And Only When You Let It Move You. The Supernatural Order Supposes The Freedom Of The Natural Order, But It Does Not Destroy It.

If We Had Intellectual Vigour Enough To Ascend From Effects To Causes, We Would Explain Political, Economical And Social Phenomena Less By Credit Sheets, Balance Of Trade And Reparations Than By Our Attitude Towards God.

Man Wants Three Things; Life, Knowledge, And Love.

Communism Is The Final Logic Of The Dehumanization Of Man.

Once You Have Surrendered Yourself, You Make Yourself Receptive. In Receiving From God, You Are Perfected And Completed.

The Pacifist Thinks That The Alternative To War Is Peace; It Is Not. Sometimes The Alternative Is Oppression. Sometimes Certain God-given Rights And Liberties Can Be Preserved Only By Resistance To That Which Would Destroy Them. And To Defend Certain Basic God-given Rights And Liberties Is Not Immoral But Righteous.

No One Has Ever Laughed At A Pun Who Did Not See In The One Word A Twofold Meaning. To Materialists This World Is Opaque Like A Curtain; Nothing Can Be Seen Through It. A Mountain Is Just A Mountain, A Sunset Just A Sunset; But To Poets, Artists, And Saints, The World Is Transparent Like A Window Pane - It Tells Of Something Beyond....a Mountain Tells Of The Power Of God, The Sunset Of His Beauty, And The Snowflake Of His Purity.

A Smile Across The Aisle Of A Bus In The Morning Could Save A Suicide Later In The Day.

Once A Man Ceases To Be Of Service To His Neighbor, He Begins To Be A Burden To Him.

One Becomes More Interested In A Job Of Work After The First Impulse To Drop It Has Been Overcome.

Some Will Not Look On Suffering Because It Creates Responsibility.

All Badness Is Spoiled Goodness. A Bad Apple Is A Good Apple That Became Rotten. Because Evil Has No Capital Of Its Own, It Is A Parasite That Feeds On Goodness.

A Democracy Flirts With The Danger Of Becoming A Slave In Direct Ratio To The Numbers Of Its Citizens Who Work, But Do Not Own / Or Who Own, But Do Not Work; Or Who Distribute, As Politicians Do, But Do Not Produce. The Danger Of The "slave State" Disappears In Ratio To The Numbers Of People Who Own Property And Admit Its Attendant Responsibilities Under God. They Can Call Their Souls Their Own Because They Own And Administer Something Other Than Their Souls. Thus They Are Free.

For A Woman, Love Is Its Own Reason. "i Love You Because I Love You.

If A Man Surrenders All Power Of Self-determination In Regard To The Profits, Management Or Ownership Of The Place Where He Works, He Not Only Loses That Special Prerogative Which Marks Him Off From A Cow In A Pasture, But What Is Worse, He Loses All Capacity For Determining Any Work. This Is The Beginning Of A Slavery Which Sometimes Goes By The Name Of Security.

Confiscation In Any Form Is An Unhealthy Solution For A Real Disease. It Amounts To Telling Men That Because They Are Economically Crippled, They Must Abandon All Efforts To Get Well And Allow The State To Provide Them With Free Wheelchairs.

Neither Theological Knowledge Nor Social Action Alone Is Enough To Keep Us In Love With Christ Unless Both Are Proceeded By A Personal Encounter With Him. Theological Insights Are Gained Not Only From Between Two Covers Of A Book, But From Two Bent Knees Before An Altar. The Holy Hour Becomes Like An Oxygen Tank To Revive The Breath Of The Holy Spirit In The Midst Of The Foul And Fetid Atmosphere Of The World

Love Burdens Itself With The Wants And Woes And Losses And Even The Wrongs Of Others.

Every Child Should Have An Occasional Pat On The Back As Long As It Is Applied Low Enough And Hard Enough.

The Modern Man, Finding That Humanism And Sex Both Fail To Satisfy, Seeks His Happiness In Science ... But Science Fails Too, For It Is Something More Than A Knowledge Of Matter The Soul Craves.

So The Divine Love Is Sacrificial Love. Love Does Not Mean To Have And To Own And To Possess. It Means To Be Had And To Be Owned And To Be Possessed. It Is Not A Circle Circumscribed By Self, It Is Arms Outstretched To Embrace All Humanity Within Its Grasp.

By The Mere Fact That We Do Not Go Forward, We Go Backward.

Every Moment Comes To You Pregnant With Divine Purpose . . . . Once It Leaves Your Hands And Your Power To Do With It As You Please, It Plunges Into Eternity, To Remain Forever What You Made It.

Nothing Ever Happens In The World That Does Not Happen First Inside Human Hearts.

We Must Go Out To Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love, And That Is The Definition Of God. He Is The Ultimate Goal Of Life; From Him We Came, And In Him Alone Do We Find Our Peace.

Broadmindedness, When It Means Indifference To Right And Wrong, Eventually Ends In A Hatred Of What Is Right.

Calamity, War, Famine, Plague, Death, Adversity, Disease, Injury Do Not Necessarily Produce Repentance. We May Become Better In A Calamity But It Does Not Necessarily Make Us Repent. The Essence Of Repentance Is That We Cannot Be Repentant Until We Confront Our Own Self Righteousness With God's Righteousness.

Each Of Us Makes His Own Weather, Determines The Color Of The Skies In The Emotional Universe Which He Inhabits.

There Are Not One Hundred People In The United States Who Hate The Catholic Church, But There Are Millions Who Hate What They Wrongly Perceive The Catholic Church To Be.

Help Someone In Distress And You Lighten Your Own Burden; The Very Joy Of Alleviating The Sorrow Of Another Is The Lessening Of One's Own.

There Are Three Ways In Which A Man Becomes A Slave. He May Be Born Into Slavery, Or Forced Into It, Or He Can Deliberately Accept His Servitude. All Three Forms Flourish In The Modern World. Men Are Born And Forced Into Slavery In Russia And Her Satellites States. Men In The Free World Invite Slavery When They Ask The Government To Provide Complete Security, When They Surrender Their Freedom To The "welfare State."

If You Do Not Worship God, You Worship Something, And Nine Times Out Of Ten It Will Be Yourself. You Have A Duty To Worship God, Not Because He Will Be Imperfect And Unhappy If You Do Not, But Because You Will Be Imperfect And Unhappy.

When We Try To Make Everything Clear, We Make Everything Confused. If, However, We Admit One Mysterious Thing In The Universe, Then Everything Else Becomes Clear In The Light Of That. The Sun Is So Bright, So Mysterious, That One Cannot Look At It, And Yet In The Light Of The Sun Everything Else Is Seen.

God Does Not Love Us Because We Are Valuable. We Are Valuable Because God Loves Us.

A Woman Never Tells You Why She Loves; She Just Tells You How She Loves.

When Our Conscience Bothers Us, Whether We Admit It Or Not, We Often Try To Justify It By Correcting Others, Or By Finding Fault With Them. The Readiness To Believe Evil About Others Is In Large Part Ammunition For A Thousand Scandals In Our Own Hearts.

Facts Themselves Do Not Give Knowledge

Evil May Have Its Hour, But God Will Have His Day.

Baloney Is Flattery Laid On So Thick It Cannot Be True, And Blarney Is Flattery So Thin We Love It.

It Is A Characteristic Of Any Decaying Civilization That The Great Masses Of The People Are Unconscious Of The Tragedy. Humanity In A Crisis Is Generally Insensitive To The Gravity Of The Times In Which It Lives. Men Do Not Want To Believe Their Own Times Are Wicked, Partly Because It Involves Too Much Self-accusation And Principally Because They Have No Standards Outside Of Themselves By Which To Measure Their Times.

When The Will Loves Anything That Is Below It In Dignity, It Degrades Itself.

Unless Souls Are Saved, Nothing Is Saved; There Can Be No World Peace Without Soul Peace.

Counsel Involving Right And Wrong Should Never Be Sought From A Man Who Does Not Say His Prayers.

The Rosary Is The Book Of The Blind, Where Souls See And There Enact The Greatest Drama Of Love The World Has Ever Known; It Is The Book Of The Simple, Which Initiates Them Into Mysteries And Knowledge More Satisfying Than The Education Of Other Men.

In Every Friendship Hearts Grow And Entwine Themselves Together, So That The Two Hearts Seem To Make Only One Heart With Only A Common Thought. That Is Why Separation Is So Painful; It Is Not So Much Two Hearts Separating, But One Being Torn Asunder.

Prayer Is Helplessness Casting Itself On Power, Infirmity Leaning On Strength, Misery Reaching To Mercy, And A Prisoner Clamoring For Relief.

Before The Sin, Satan Assures Us That It Is Of No Consequence; After The Sin, He Persuades Us That It Is Unforgivable.

The Higher The Love, The More Demands Will Be Made On Us To Conform To That Ideal.

All Love Craves Unity.

The Only Time Laughter Is Wicked Is When It Is Turned Against Him Who Gave It.

But There Was No Room At The Inn"; The Inn Is The Gathering Place Of Public Opinion; So Often Public Opinion Locks Its Doors To The King.

It Is The Basic Principle Of Marxism That Any Attempt To Reconcile Capital And Labor So That They Both Co-operate In Peace And Prosperity Is A Betrayal Of Communism.

The Nearer Christ Comes To A Heart, The More It Becomes Conscious Of Its Guilt; It Will Then Either Ask For His Mercy And Find Peace, Or Else It Will Turn Against Him Because It Is Not Yet Ready To Give Up Its Sinfulness. Thus He Will Separate The Good From The Bad, The Wheat From The Chaff. Man's Reaction To This Divine Presence Will Be The Test: Either It Will Call Out All The Opposition Of Egotistic Natures, Or Else Galvanize Them Into A Regeneration And A Resurrection.

Never Will We Be Able To Understand Our Times If We Naively 'think' Of This System Of Self Government As The Work Of A Few Gangsters Or The Creation Of A Pack Of Criminals We Call A Political Party. The Appeal Of Socialism, Fascism And Communism Was Principally Negative; They Were Protests Against A Live And Let Live Anything Goes Liberalism, A Spineless Indifference To Causes, A Failure To Recognize That Nothing Was Evil Enough To Hate, And Nothing Was Good Enough To Die For.

At Cana, [mary] Gave Him As A Savior To Sinners; On The Cross He Gave Her As A Refuge To Sinners.

Any Book Which Inspires Us To Lead A Better Life Is A Good Book.

Modern Prophets Say That Our Economics Have Failed Us. No! It Is Not Our Economics Which Have Failed; It Is Man Who Has Failed-man Who Has Forgotten God. Hence No Manner Of Economic Or Political Readjustment Can Possibly Save Our Civilization; We Can Be Saved Only By A Renovation Of The Inner Man, Only By A Purging Of Our Hearts And Souls; For Only By Seeking First The Kingdom Of God And His Justice Will All These Other Things Be Added Unto Us.

A Reasonable Being Should Ask Himself Why - If Chemicals Can Enter Into Plants, And Plants Be Taken Up Into Animals, And Animals Be Taken Into Man - Why Man Himself, Who Is The Peak Of Visible Creation, Should Be Denied The Privilege Of Being Assimilated Into A Higher Power? The Rose Has No Right To Say That There Is No Life Above It And Neither Has Man, Who Has A Vast Capacity And Unconquerable Yearning For Eternal Life And Truth And Love.

Nothing Can Do Men Of Good Will More Harm Than Apparent Compromises With Parties That Subscribe To Antimoral And Antidemocratic And Anti-god Forces. We Must Have The Courage To Detach Our Support From Men Who Are Doing Evil. We Must Bear Them No Hatred, But We Must Break With Them.

Believe The Incredible And You Can Do The Impossible.

There Is Only One Thin In The World That Is Really Our Own-and That Is Our Will...our Will Is Ours For All Eternity. That Is Why The Most Precious Gift That One Can Give Is Another In His Will.

One Of The Greatest Disasters That Happened To Modern Civilization Was For Democracy To Inscribe "liberty" On Its Banners Instead Of "justice." Because "liberty" Was Considered The Ideal It Was Not Long Until Some Men Interpreted It As Meaning "freedom From Justice"; Then When Religion And Decent Government Attempted To Bring Them Back To Justice, Organized Into "freedom Groups" They Protested That Their Constitutional And Natural Rights Were Being Violated.

When We Die To Something, Something Comes Alive Within Us. If We Die To Self, Charity Comes Alive; If We Die To Pride, Service Comes Alive; If We Die To Lust, Reverence For Personality Comes Alive; If We Die To Anger, Love Comes Alive.

A Man May Stand For The Justice Of God, But A Woman Stands For His Mercy.

A Catholic May Sin And Sin As Badly As Anyone Else, But No Genuine Catholic Ever Denies He Is A Sinner. A Catholic Wants His Sins Forgiven - Not Excused Or Sublimated.

Sex Has Become One Of The Most Discussed Subjects Of Modern Times. The Victorians Pretended It Did Not Exist; The Moderns Pretend Nothing Else Exists.

Sometimes The Only Way The Good Lord Can Get Into Some Hearts Is To Break Them.

Because God Is Full Of Life, I Imagine Each Morning Almighty God Says To The Sun, "do It Again"; And Every Evening To The Moon And The Stars, "do It Again"; And Every Springtime To The Daisies, "do It Again"; And Every Time A Child Is Born Into The World Asking For Curtain Call, That The Heart Of The God Might Once More Ring Out In The Heart Of The Babe.

All My Sermons Are Prepared In The Presence Of The Blessed Sacrament. As Recreation Is Most Pleasant And Profitable In The Sun, So Homiletic Creativity Is Best Nourished Before The Eucharist. The Most Brilliant Ideas Come From Meeting God Face To Face. The Holy Spirit That Presided At The Incarnation Is The Best Atmosphere For Illumination. Pope John Paul Ii Keeps A Small Desk Or Writing Pad Near Him Whenever He Is In The Presence Of The Blessed Sacrament; And I Have Done This All My Life - I Am Sure For The Same Reason He Does, Because A Lover Always Works Better When The Beloved Is With Him.

Our Personal Dispositions Are As Windowpanes Through Which We See The World Either As Rosy Or Dull. The Way We Color The Glasses We Wear Is The Way The World Seems To Us.

A Woman Gets Angry When A Man Denies His Faults, Because She Knew Them All Along. His Lying Mocks Her Affection; It Is The Deceit That Angers Her More Than The Faults.

The Humble, Simple Souls, Who Are Little Enough To See The Bigness Of God In The Littleness Of A Babe, Are Therefore The Only Ones Who Will Ever Understand The Reason Of His Visitation. He Came To This Poor Earth Of Ours To Carry On An Exchange; To Say To Us, As Only The Good God Could Say: 'you Give Me Your Humanity, And I Will Give You My Divinity; You Give Me Your Time, And I Will Give You My Eternity; You Give Me Your Broken Heart, And I Will Give You Love; You Give Me Your Nothingness, And I Will Give You My All.

The World Would Hate His Followers, Not Because Of Evil In Their Lives, But Precisely Because Of The Absence Of Evil Or Rather Their Goodness. Goodness Does Not Cause Hatred, But It Gives Occasion For Hatred To Manifest Itself. The Holier And Purer A Life, The More It Would Attract Malignity And Hate. Mediocrity Alone Survives.

Love Is The Key To The Mystery. Love By Its Very Nature Is Not Selfish, But Generous. It Seeks Not Its Own, But The Good Of Others. The Measure Of Love Is Not The Pleasure It Gives-that Is The Way The World Judges It-but The Joy And Peace It Can Purchase For Others.

It Is Easy To Find Truth, Though It Is Hard To Face It, And Harder Still To Follow It.

Each And Every One Of Us, At The End Of The Journey Of Life, Will Come Face To Face With Either One Or The Other Of Two Faces... And One Of Them, Either The Merciful Face Of Christ Or The Miserable Face Of Satan, Will Say, "mine, Mine." May We Be Christ's!

Much Suffering In Hospitals Is Wasted.

Freedom That Ignores The Transcendent Difference Between Good And Evil Ends In The Denial Of Freedom Itself.

I Wonder Maybe If Our Lord Does Not Suffer More From Our Indifference, Than He Did From The Crucifixion.

Unless Souls Are Saved, Nothing Is Saved; There Can Be No World Peace Unless There Is Soul Peace. World Wars Are Only Projections Of The Conflicts Waged Inside The Souls Of Men And Women, For Nothing Happens In The External World That Has Not First Happened Within A Soul.

It Takes Three To Make Love, Not Two: You, Your Spouse, And God. Without God People Only Succeed In Bringing Out The Worst In One Another. Lovers Who Have Nothing Else To Do But Love Each Other Soon Find There Is Nothing Else. Without A Central Loyalty Life Is Unfinished.

Hearing Nuns' Confessions Is Like Being Stoned To Death With Popcorn.

If All Things In This Universe Exist, It Is Because They Participate In The Being Of God, If There Are Some Things With Life, It Is Because They Are Reflections Of The Life Of God; If There Are Beings Endowed With Intellect And Will - Like Men And Angels - It's Because They Are A Participation Of The Sovereign Intellect Which Is God.

Love Is A Mutual Self-giving Which Ends In Self-recovery.

Being Is The Soul Of Every Concept, Of Every Judgment And Of Every Reasoning.

Sex Divorced From Love, Instead Of Raising Man By Taking Him Away From Himself, Drags Him Down To The Hall Of Mirrors Where He Is Always Confronted With Self. Sex Does Not Care About The Person, But About The Act. The Fig Leaf Which Once Was Put Over The Secret Parts Of Man And Woman In Sculpture Is Now Put Over The Face. The Person Does Not Matter.

Why Are Those Who Are Notoriously Undisciplined And Unmoral Also Most Contemptuous Of Religion And Morality? They Are Trying To Solace Their Own Unhappy Lives By Pulling The Happy Down To Their Own Abysmal Depths.

There Are Ultimately Only Two Possible Adjustments To Life; One Is To Suit Our Lives To Principles; The Other Is To Suit Principles To Our Lives. If We Do Not Live As We Think, We Soon Begin To Think As We Live. The Method Of Adjusting Moral Principles To The Way Men Live Is Just A Perversion Of The Order Of Things.

To Value Only What Can Be "sold" Is To Defile What Is Truly Precious. The Innocent Joy Of Childhood, The Devotedness Of A Wife, The Self Sacrificing Service Of A Daughter--none Of These Have An Earthly Market. To Reduce Everything To The Dirty Scales Of Economic Values Is To Forget That Some Gifts, Like Mary's, Are So Precious That The Heart That Offers Them Will Be Praised As Long As Time Endures.

The Only Way To Win Audiences Is To Tell People About The Life And Death Of Christ. Every Other Approach Is A Waste.

All Our Anxieties Relate To Time. The Major Problems Of Psychiatry Revolve Around An Analysis Of The Despair, Pessimism, Melancholy, And Complexes That Are The Inheritances Of What Has Been Or With The Fears, Anxieties, Worries, That Are The Imaginings Of What Will Be.

There Is More Grace Per Square Foot In San Francisco Than Any Place On Earth.

All Love Craves Unity. As The Highest Peak Of Love In The Human Order Is The Unity Of Husband And Wife In The Flesh, So The Highest Unity In The Divine Order Is The Unity Of The Soul And Christ In Communion.

Our Lord Did Not Ask Us To Give Up The Things Of Earth, But To Exchange Them For Better Things.

You Must Remember To Love People And Use Things, Rather Than To Love Things And Use People.

We Can Think Of Lent As A Time To Eradicate Evil Or Cultivate Virtue, A Time To Pull Up Weeds Or To Plant Good Seeds. Which Is Better Is Clear, For The Christian Ideal Is Always Positive Rather Than Negative.

Liberty Is No Heirloom. It Requires The Daily Bread Of Self-denial, The Salt Of Law And, Above All, The Backbone Of Acknowledging Responsibility For Our Deeds.

Satan Stations More Devils On Monastery Walls Than In The Dens Of Iniquity, For The Latter Offer No Resistance.

We Are All Born With The Power Of Speech, But We Need Grammar. Conscience, Too, Needs Revelation.

Head Knowledge Is Worthless, Unless Accompanied By Submission Of The Will And Right Action.

Scepticism Is Never Certain Of Itself, Being Less A Firm Intellectual Position Than A Pose To Justify Bad Behavior.

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