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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.

-Fulton J. Sheen

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When We Die To

Fulton J. Sheen

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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.

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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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Refusal To Take Sides On Great Moral Issues Is Itself A Decision. It Is A Silent Acquiescence To Evil. The Tragedy Of Our Time Is That Those Who Still Believe In Honesty Lack Fire And Conviction, While Those Who Believe In Dishonesty Are Full Of Passionate Conviction.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Falling In Love

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Jealousy Is The Tribute Which Mediocrity Pays To Genius.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

All Love Craves Unity.

Much Suffering In Hospitals Is Wasted.

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.

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

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

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.

Very Few People Believe In The Devil These Days, Which Suits The Devil Very Well. He Is Always Helping To Circulate The News Of His Own Death. The Essence Of God Is Existence, And He Defines Himself As: 'i Am Who Am.' The Essence Of The Devil Is The Lie, And He Defines Himself As: 'i Am Who Am Not.' Satan Has Very Little Trouble With Those Who Do Not Believe In Him; They Are Already On His Side.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The World Is Rapidly Being Divided Into Two Camps, The Comradeship Of Anti-christ And The Brotherhood Of Christ. The Lines Between These Two Are Being Drawn. How Long The Battle Will Be We Know Not Whether Swords Will Have To Be Unsheathed We Know Not Whether Blood Will Have To Be Shed We Know Not Whether It Will Be An Armed Conflict We Know Not. But In A Conflict Between Truth And Darkness, Truth Cannot Lose.

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

Why Is It That Any Time We Speak Of Temptation We Always Speak Of Temptation As Something That Inclines Us To Wrong. We Have More Temptations To Become Good Than We Do To Become Bad.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

If We Wish To Have The Light, We Must Keep The Sun; If We Wish To Keep Our Forests We Must Keep Our Trees; If We Wish To Keep Our Perfumes, We Must Keep Our Flowers- And If We Wish To Keep Our Rights, Then We Must Keep Our God.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

If The Bringing Of Children Into The World Is Today An Economic Burden, It Is Because The Social System Is Inadequate; And Not Because God’s Law Is Wrong. Therefore The State Should Remove The Causes Of That Burden. The Human Must Not Be Limited And Controlled To Fit The Economic, But The Economic Must Be Expanded To Fit The Human.

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

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.

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

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.

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

It Is Not Particularly Difficult To Find Thousands Who Will Spend Two Or Three Hours A Day In Exercising, But If You Ask Them To Bend Their Knees To God In Five Minutes Of Prayer They Protest That It Is Too Long.

Believe The Incredible And You Can Do The Impossible.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Man Is Incurably Curious.

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.

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

If You Do Not Live What You Believe, You Will End Up Believing What You Live.

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.

The Rosary Is The Book Of The Blind.

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.

Health, Power, Riches, Possessions And Honor Can Be Snatched From You, But Your Will Is Irrevocably Your Own.

Some Representatives Of Monopolistic Capitalism, Sensing This Evil In Their System, Have Tried To Silence Criticism By Pointing To The Diffused Ownership In The Great Corporations. They Advertise, "no One Owns More Than 4 Percent Of The Stock Of This Great Company." Or They Print Lists Of Stockholders, Showing That These Include Farmers, Schoolteachers, Baseball Players, Taxi Drivers, And Even Babies.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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 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.

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

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

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 Power Of The Rosary Is Beyond Description.

Praying The Rosary

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.

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

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.

The Rosary Is The Best Therapy For These Distraught, Unhappy, Fearful, And Frustrated Souls, Precisely Because It Involves The Simultaneous Use Of Three Powers: The Physical, The Vocal, And The Spiritual, And In That Order.

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Communism Is An Aggressive Religion Of The Species.

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.

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

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.

Sin Is A Disproportionate Seriousness.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Live Each Day As You Would Climb A Mountain. An Occasional Glance Toward The Summit Keeps The Goal In Mind, But Many Beautiful Scenes Are To Be Observed From Each New Vantage Point. So Climb Slowly, Enjoying Each Passing Moment; And Then The View From The Summit Will Serve A More Rewarding Climax For Your Journey.

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.

The Proud Man Counts His Newspaper Clippings, The Humble Man His Blessings.

Facts Themselves Do Not Give Knowledge

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 Term Science Means Something Quite Different For Our Generation Than It Did Not So Many Generations Ago.

Science Is Not Wisdom.

The Egocentric Is Always Frustrated, Simply Because The Condition Of Self-perfection Is Self-surrender. There Must Be A Willingness To Die To The Lower Part Of Self, Before There Can Be A Birth To The Nobler.

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!

America, It Is Said, Is Suffering From Intolerance - It Is Not. It Is Suffering From Tolerance. Tolerance Of Right And Wrong, Truth And Error, Virtue And Evil, Christ And Chaos. Our Country Is Not Nearly So Overrun With The Bigoted As It Is Overrun With The Broadminded.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Pride Is The King Of Vices...it Is The First Of The Pallbearers Of The Soul...other Vices Destroy Only Their Opposite Virtues, As Wantonness Destroys Chastity; Greed Destroys Temperance; Anger Destroys Gentleness; But Pride Destroys All Virtues.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Obedience To Truth Is Obedience To Love.

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.

Nothing Is More Destined To Create Deep-seated Anxieties In People Than The False Assumption That Life Should Be Free From Anxieties.

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.

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

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