A Stack of Quotations

I've had a whole stack of quotations collecting in my inbox from various sources over the last little while, just waiting for the right moment to be shared. And, since I'm not feeling particularly pithy this morning, and because I've yet to figure out what I'm going to do with the blessing of a holiday Monday, I thought that rather than share about nothing, I'd share the profound thoughts from others that I've been collecting.

"Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain." (Author Unknown)

"Strange how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody." (Samuel Pepys)

Resolve: Generously and with no half-hearted, timorous dread of the opinions of Church and men to manifest my mission ... You have no time to occupy your thoughts with that complacency or consideration of what others will think. Your business is simply, “What will my Father in heaven think?” (St. Katherine Drexel, founder of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament)

In order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one's soul and to keep silence; not a gloomy silence, but an interior silence; that is to say, recollection in God. One can speak a great deal without breaking silence; and, on the contrary, one can speak little and be constantly breaking the silence. (Saint Faustina Kowalska)

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Perhaps it is not after all so difficult for a man to part with his possessions, but it is certainly most difficult for him to part with himself. To renounce what one has is a minor thing; but to renounce what one is, that is asking a lot. (St. Gregory, Homilies on the Gospels)

"Learn to pray to God in such a way that you are trusting Him as your Physician to do what He knows is best. Confess to Him the disease and let Him choose the remedy. Then hold tight to love, for what He does will cut and sting you." (Augustine of Hippo)

God leaves us free to accept or reject his love, and we make that choice every day, building on the choice we made the day before. (from Love in the Little Things)

We sustain our love by growing older in close company with the object of our love. This is true of marriage, and it's true of our life of faith. (from Love in the Little Things)

The fruits are the last things to appear on a tree, so it will take you time to develop these as you grow in the spiritual life. (St. Thomas Aquinas)

If we pray, we can do twice as much in less time because we are not doing it, God is. (Mother Teresa)

I have committed myself to joy. I have come to realize that those who make space for joy, those who prefer nothing to joy, those who desire the utter reality, will most assuredly have it. We must not be afraid to announce it to refugees, slum dwellers, saddened prisoners, angry prophets, Now and then we must even announce it to ourselves. In this prison of now, in this cynical and sophisticated age, someone must believe in joy. (Richard Rohr, OFM)