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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.

-Fulton J. Sheen

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To Value Only What

Fulton J. Sheen

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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.

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If You Wish To Convert Anyone To The Fullness Of The Knowledge Of Our Lord And Of His Mystical Body, Then Teach Him The Rosary. One Of Two Things Will Happen. Either He Will Stop Saying The Rosary - Or He Will Get The Gift Of Faith.

Never Forget That There Are Only Two Philosophies To Rule Your Life: The One Of The Cross, Which Starts With The Fast And Ends With The Feast. The Other Of Satan, Which Starts With The Feast And Ends With The Headache.

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

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

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

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

It Is A Long Established Principle Of The Church Never To Completely Drop From Her Public Worship Any Ceremony, Object Or Prayer Which Once Occupied A Place In That Worship.

There Are No Planes In The Spiritual Life; We Are Either Going Uphill Or Coming Down.

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.

I Feel It Is Time That I Also Pay Tribute To My Four Writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke And John.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Freedom Does Not Mean That Right To Do Whatever We Please, But Rather To Do As We Ought. The Right To Do Whatever We Please Reduces Freedom To A Physical Power And Forgets That Freedom Is A Moral Power.

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

The World May Disagree With The Church, But The World Knows Very Definitely With What It Is Disagreeing. In The Future As In The Past, The Church Will Be Intolerant About The Sanctity Of Marriage, For What God Has Joined Together No Man Shall Put Asunder; She Will Be Intolerant About Her Creed, And Be Ready To Die For It, For She Fears Not Those Who Kill The Body, But Rather Those Who Have The Power To Cast Body And Soul Into Hell.

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

Christianity, Unlike Any Other Religion In The World, Begins With Catastrophe And Defeat. Sunshine Religions And Psychological Inspirations Collapse In Calamity And Wither In Adversity. But The Life Of The Founder Of Christianity, Having Begun With The Cross, Ends With The Empty Tomb And Victory.

Some Will Not Look On Suffering Because It Creates Responsibility.

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

Monotonous Life

Live For Others

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

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.

Nature Gives Man Corn But He Must Grind It; God Gives Man A Will But He Must Make The Right Choices.

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

A Man Without God Is Not Like A Cake Without Raisins; He Is Like A Cake Without The Flour And Milk; He Lacks The Essential Ingredients.

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.

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.

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.

Lenten Practices Of Giving Up Pleasures Are Good Reminders That The Purpose Of Life Is Not Pleasure. The Purpose Of Life Is To Attain To Perfect Life, All Truth And Undying Ecstatic Love - Which Is The Definition Of God. In Pursuing That Goal We Find Happiness. Pleasure Is Not The Purpose Of Anything; Pleasure Is A By-product Resulting From Doing Something That Is Good. One Of The Best Ways To Get Happiness And Pleasure Out Of Life Is To Ask Ourselves, 'how Can I Please God?' And, 'why Am I Not Better?' It Is The Pleasure-seeker Who Is Bored, For All Pleasures Diminish With Repetition.

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

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.

The Rosary Is The Book Of The Blind.

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

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.

Souls Generally Do Not Fall Away From Christ Because Of The Creed; They First Have Difficulty With The Commandments.

When I Stand Up To Talk, People Listen To Me; They Will Follow What I Have To Say. Is It Any Power Of Mine? Of Course Not. St. Paul Says, 'what Have You That You Have Not Received And You Who Have Received, Why Do You Glory As If You Had Not?' But The Secret Of My Power Is That I Have Never In Fifty-five Years Missed Spending An Hour In The Presence Of Our Lord In The Blessed Sacrament. That's Where The Power Comes From. That's Where Sermons Are Born. That's Where Every Good Thought Is Conceived.

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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.

The Wicked Fear The Good, Because The Good Are A Constant Reproach To Their Consciences. The Ungodly Like Religion In The Same Way That They Like Lions, Either Dead Or Behind Bars; They Fear Religion When It Breaks Loose And Begins To Challenge Their Consciences.

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.

Communism Is An Aggressive Religion Of The Species.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Facts Themselves Do Not Give Knowledge

If You Do Not Worship God, You Worship Something, And Nine Times Out Of Ten It Will Be Yourself.

The Western World Generally Has Lost The Concept Of Man As A Creature Made To The Image And Likeness Of God, And Reduced Him Either To A Component Part Of The Universe, To An Economic Animal Or To A "physiological Bag Filled With Psychological Libido." Once Man Became Materialized And Atomized In Western Thinking, It Was Only Natural For A Totalitarianism To Arise To Gather Up The Fragments Into A New Totality And Substitute The Collective Man For The Individual Man Who Was Isolated From All Social Responsibilities.

Let Those Who Think That The Church Pays Too Much Attention To Mary Give Heed To The Fact That Our Blessed Lord Himself Gave Ten Times As Much Of His Life To Her As He Gave To His Apostles.

Communism Is The Final Logic Of The Dehumanization Of Man.

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.

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.

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.

The Old Liberal Rebelled Against Taxation Without Responsibility, The New Liberal Wants The Taxation As A Handout Without Responsibility.

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

If I Were Not A Catholic, And Were Looking For The True Church In The World Today, I Would Look For The One Church Which Did Not Get Along Well With The World; In Other Words, I Would Look For The Church Which The World Hated.

Humility Is Dependence On God As Pride Is Independence Of Him. The Humble Soul Is Always The Thankful Soul.

Burning The Candle At Both Ends For God's Sake May Be Foolishness To The World, But It Is A Profitable Christian Exercise-for So Much Better The Light. Only One Thing In Life Matters. Being Found Worthy Of The Light Of The World In The Hour Of His Visitation. We Need Have No Undue Fear For Our Health If We Work Hard For The Kingdom Of God; God Will Take Care Of Our Health If We Take Care Of His Cause. In Any Case It Is Better To Burn Out Than To Rust Out.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Life Of Each And Every One Of Us Has Been Written. The Crucifix Is My Autobiography. The Blood Is The Ink. The Nails The Pen. The Skin The Parchment. On Every Line Of That Body I Can Trace My Life. In The Crown Of Thorns I Can Read My Pride. In The Hands That Are Dug With Nails, I Can Read Avarice And Greed. In The Flesh Hanging From Him Like Purple Rags, I Can Read My Lust. In Feet That Are Fettered, I Can Find The Times That I Ran Away And Would Not Let Him Follow. Any Sin That You Can Think Of Is Written There.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Monopolistic Capitalism Is To Blame For This; It Sunders The Right To Own Property From Responsibility That Owning Property Involves. Those Who Own Only A Few Stocks Have No Practical Control Of Any Industry. They Vote By Postcard Proxy, But They Have Rarely Even Seen "their" Company. The Two Elements Which Ought To Be Inextricably Joined In Any True Conception Of Private Property - Ownership And Responsibility - Are Separated. Those Who Own Do Not Manage; Those Who Manage; Those Who Manage And Work Do Not Control Or Own.

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.

To See A Priest Making His Meditation Before Mass Does More For An Altar Boy's Vocation Than A Thousand Pieces Of Inspirational Literature.

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.

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

Falling In Love

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.

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

Science Is Not Wisdom.

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.

In Vocal Prayer We Go To God On Foot. In Meditation We Go To God On Horseback. In Contemplation We Go To God In A Jet.

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.

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

The Science Of A Religious Man Must Be Scientific; The Religion Of A Scientific Man Must Be Religious.

It's Impossible To Lose Your Footing When You're On Your Knees.

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.

The Reason We're Bored Is Because We Don't Love Anything.

All Love Craves Unity.

Far Better It Is For You To Say: "i Am A Sinner," Than To Say: "i Have No Need Of Religion." The Empty Can Be Filled, But The Self-intoxicated Have No Room For God.

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

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

Atheism, Nine Times Out Of Ten, Is Born From The Womb Of A Bad Conscience. Disbelief Is Born Of Sin, Not Of Reason.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Jealousy Is The Tribute Which Mediocrity Pays To Genius.

There Is No Other Subject On Which The Average Mind Is So Much Confused As The Subject Of Tolerance And Intolerance... Tolerance Applies Only To Persons, But Never To Principles. Intolerance Applies Only To Principles, But Never To Persons.

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.

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

By A Beautiful Paradox Of Divine Love, God Makes His Cross The Very Means Of Our Salvation And Our Life. We Have Slain Him; We Have Nailed Him There And Crucified Him; But The Love In His Eternal Heart Could Not Be Extinguished. He Willed To Give Us The Very Life We Slew; To Give Us The Very Food We Destroyed; To Nourish Us With The Very Bread We Buried, And The Very Blood We Poured Forth. He Made Our Very Crime Into A Happy Fault; He Turned A Crucifixion Into A Redemption; A Consecration Into A Communion; A Death Into Life Everlasting

Love Was Meant To Be Also A Sign, A Symbol, A Messenger, A Telltale Of The Divine. Love Is A Messenger From God Saying That Every Human Affection And Every Ecstasy Of Love Are Sparks From The Great Flame Of Love That Is God.

When A Man Loves A Woman, He Has To Become Worthy Of Her. The Higher Her Virtue, The More Noble Her Character, The More Devoted She Is To Truth, Justice, Goodness, The More A Man Has To Aspire To Be Worthy Of Her. The History Of Civilization Could Actually Be Written In Terms Of The Level Of Its Women.

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.

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

Possession Properly Has Two Faces, Two Aspects: We All Have A Right To Private Property, But This Is Accompanied By Our Responsibility For Its Righteous Use. These Two Things (which Should Be Inseparable) Are Frequently Divided Today. Everyone Admits That The Farmer Who Own A Horse Is Obligated To Feed And Care For It, But In The Case Of Stocks And Bonds, We Often Forget That The Same Principle Should Prevail.

Many Souls Fail To Find God Because They Want A Religion Which Will Remake Society Without Remaking Themselves.

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.

The History Of Civilization Could Actually Be Written In Terms Of The Level Of Its Women.

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.

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.

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

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.

Leisure Is A Form Of Silence, Not Noiselessness. It Is The Silence Of Contemplation Such As Occurs When We Let Our Minds Rest On A Rosebud, A Child At Play, A Divine Mystery, Or A Waterfall.

To Love What Is Below The Human Is Degradation; To Love What Is Human For The Sake Of The Human Is Mediocrity; To Love The Human For The Sake Of The Divine Is Enriching; To Love The Divine For Its Own Sake Is Sanctity.

Life Is Like A Cash Register, In That Every Account, Every Thought, Every Deed, Like Every Sale, Is Registered And Recorded.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Person Is Great, Not By The Ferocity Of His Hatred Of Evil, But By The Intensity Of His Love For God.

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.

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.

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

Pride Is An Admission Of Weakness; It Secretly Fears All Competition And Dreads All Rivals.

The Fact The Enemies Of God Must Face Is That Modern Civilization Has Conquered The World, But In Doing So Has Lost Its Soul. And In Losing Its Soul It Will Lose The Very World It Gained. Even Our Own So-called Liberal Culture In These United States Which Has Tried To Avoid Complete Secularization By Leaving Little Zones Of Individual Freedom Is In Danger Of Forgetting That These Zones Were Preserved Only Because Religion Was In Their Soul. And As Religion Fades So Will Freedom, For Only Where The Spirit Of God Is, Is There Liberty.

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.

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

Unforgivable Sin

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

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 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.

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

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.

It Is Not Easy To Explain Why God Permits Evil; But It Is Impossible For An Atheist To Explain The Existence Of Goodness. How Could A Spiritless, Soul-less, Cross-less, Godless Universe Become The Center Of Faith, Purity, Sacrifice, And Martyrdom? How Can Decency Be The Decent Thing If There Is No God? Since God Is Love, Why Should We Be Surprised That Want Of It Should End In Pain, Hate, Broken Hearts, And War?

Ever Since The Days Of Adam, Man Has Been Hiding From God And Saying, 'god Is Hard To Find.

Christian Inspirational

Freedom Is Not Just Something With Which We Are Born; It Is Something We Achieve. America Did Not Receive A Perpetual Endowment Of Freedom; It Has Had To Struggle And Fight To Preserve It. Freedom Is Not An Heirloom Or An Antique; It Is A Life That Must Fight Against The Corrosive Powers Of Death And Nourish Itself On The Daily Bread Of Goodness And Virtue.

The Very Freedom Which The Sinner Supposedly Exercises In His Self-indulgence Is Only Another Proof That He Is Ruled By The Tyrant.

Prayer Begins By Talking To God, But It Ends By Listening To Him. In The Face Of Absolute Truth, Silence Is The Soul's Language.

Every Man Rejoices Twice When He Has A Partner In His Joy. He Who Shares Tears With Us Wipes Them Away. He Divides Them In Two, And He Who Laughs With Us Makes The Joy Double.

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.

So Long As There Are Poor, - I Am Poor, - So Long As There Are Prisons, - I Am A Prisoner, - So Long As There Are Sick, - I Am Weak, - So Long As There Is Ignorance, - I Must Learn The Truth, - So Long As There Is Hate, - I Must Love, - So Long As There Is Hunger, - I Am Famished. - Such Is The Identification Our Divine Lord Would Have Us Make With All Whom He Made In Love And For Love.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

The Slave States Of Western World Are An Outgrowth Of Monopolistic Capitalism - An Economic System Which Is Opposed To The Wide Distribution Of Private Property In Many Hands. Instead, Monopolistic Capitalism Concentrates Productive Wealth Among A Few Men, Allowing The Rest To Become A Vast Proletariat.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Soviet Union Is Like The Cross Without Christ, While American Culture Is Like Christ Without The Cross.

Modern Minds No Longer Object To The Church Because Of The Way They Think, But Because Of The Way They Live. They No Longer Have Difficulties With The Creed, But With Her Commandments. The Heresy Of Our Day Is Not The Heresy Of Thought, But Of Action.

Much Suffering In Hospitals Is Wasted.

The Power Of The Rosary Is Beyond Description.

Praying The Rosary

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

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.

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.

Most Of Us Love A Non-self, Or Something Extrinsic And Apart From Our Inner Life; But A Mother's Love During The Time She Is A Flesh-and-blood Ciborium Is Not For A Non-self But For One That Is Her Very Self, A Perfect Example Of Charity And Love Which Hardly Perceives A Separation. Motherhood Then Becomes A Kind Of Priesthood. She Brings God To Man By Preparing The Flesh In Which The Soul Will Be Implanted; She Brings Man To God In Offering The Child Back Again To The Creator.

Judge The Catholic Church Not By Those Who Barely Live By Its Spirit, But By The Example Of Those Who Live Closest To It.

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.

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!

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

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.

Gaston Milhaud, Like Many Of His Contemporaries, Sought To Overthrow Empirical Positivism By Insisting On The Fundamental Reality Of The Mind, But Mind Conceived In The Kantian Sense. The Knowledge Of Nature Is Symbolic, And There Is No Necessary Connection Between The Phenomena And Our Fictions.

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.

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

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.

Tolerance Is An Attitude Of Reasoned Patience Toward Evil... A Forbearance That Restrains Us From Showing Anger Or Inflicting Punishment. Tolerance Applies Only To Persons... Never To Truth.

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.

There Is A Tendency Among Many Shallow Thinkers Of Our Day To Teach That Every Human Act Is A Reflex, Over Which We Do Not Exercise Human Control. They Would Rate A Generous Deed As No More Praiseworthy Than A Wink, A Crime As No More Voluntary Than A Sneeze. . . Such A Philosophy Undercuts All Human Dignity. . . All Of Us Have The Power Of Choice In Action At Every Moment Of Our Lives.

When You Are Getting Kicked From The Rear It Means You Are In Front.

The Denial Of The Right Of Ownership To A Man Is A Denial Of His Basic Freedom: Freedom Without Property Is Always Incomplete. To Be "secured" - But With No Accompanying Responsibility - Is To Be The Slave Of Whatever Group Provides The Security.

Civilization Is Always In Danger When Those Who Have Never Learned To Obey Are Given The Right To Command.

We Become Like That Which We Love. If We Love What Is Base, We Become Base; But If We Love What Is Noble, We Become Noble.

No Man Hates God Without First Hating Himself.

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.

Obedience To Truth Is Obedience To Love.

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

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

The Christmas Gift Of Peace Was The Uncoiling Of The Links Of A Triple Chain That First Unites A Person With God, Then With Himself, Then With His Neighbor.

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.

The Basic Struggle Today Is Not Between Individualism And Collectivism, Free Enterprise And Socialism, Democracy And Dictatorship. These Are Only The Superficial Manifestations Of A Deeper Struggle Which Is Moral And Spiritual And Involves Above All Else Whether Man Shall Exist For The State, Or The State For Man, And Whether Freedom Is Of The Spirit Or A Concession Of A Materialized Society.

Penance Does Not Require Hair Shirts Today; Our Neighbors Are Hair Shirts.

Too Many People Get Credit For Being Good, When They Are Only Being Passive.

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

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."

To Create The World Cost God Nothing; To Save It From Sin Cost His Life Blood.

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John Henrik Clarke

Dorothy Dunnett

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