By a Parish Priest TAKEN FROM The Catholic Church the Teacher of Mankind Imprimatur, 1905 GENEROSITY Should he require what is my own, as my land or my money, I would not refuse him, though all I have belongs to the poor. But the Emperor (Valentinian I) has no right to that which belongs to God. If you require my estate, you may take it; if my body, I readily give it up; have you a mind to load me with irons or to put. me to death, I am content. I shall not fly to the protection of the people, nor cling to the altar; I choose rather to be sacrificed for the sake of the altar. -------- St. Ambrose Why should others cause me to offend God, or to lose the charity which I owe and bear them? If any person were to cut off my arms or pluck out my eyes, they would be the dearer to me, and would seem the more to deserve my tenderness and compassion. -------- St. Edmund, K.C. In proportion as a soul is generous in the service of God, she experiences the effects of her liberality, and becomes day by day a more fit recipient of heavenly gifts and graces. -------- St. Ignatius The dangers to which I am exposed, and the pains I take for the interests of God alone, are the inexhaustible springs of spiritual joys; insomuch that these islands, bare of all worldly necessaries, are the places in the world for a man to lose his sight with excess of weeping; but they are tears of joy. I remember not ever to have tasted such interior delights, and these consolations of the soul are so pure, so exquisite, and so constant, that they take from me all sense of my corporal sufferings. -------- St. Francis Xavier Would not traders go thither were gold to be found there, and can I hesitate when there are souls to be saved instead? -------- St. Francis Xavier Christ one day said to St. John of the Cross, "John, what recompense dost thou ask for thy labors?" He answered: "Lord, I ask no other recompense than to suffer and be contemned for Thee." -------- St. John of the Cross I know not your gods. Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, is my God. Beat, tear, or burn me, and if my words offend you, cut out my tongue: every part of my body is ready when God calls for it as a sacrifice. -------- St. Theodorus, M. "If we had taken you at such a time," said the heretics to St. Dominic, "what would you have done?" The Saint replied: "I would have asked you not to kill me all at once, but to have cut off my limbs, one by one, and to have placed them before my eyes, and then to have tom out my eyes, and left me so to perish." -------- St. Dominic St. Martin, moved by the tears of his religious brethren, wept also and prayed thus: "Lord, if I am still necessary to Thy people, I refuse not to labor, Thy holy Will be done!" As if he had said, My soul is unconquered by old age, weakness, or fatigue, and ready to sustain conflicts, if Thou callest me to them. But if Thou dost spare my age and take me to Thyself, be the Guardian and Protector of those souls for which I fear. -------- St. Sulpicianus For my part, I declare that nothing shall induce me to comply with your demand. What reproaches should I not suffer from my conscience?---what answer could I give to God, if I renounced the faith, for human respect? -------- St. Maximus, Confessor The Martyrs desired death, not to fly labor, but to attain their end. And why did they not fear death, from which man naturally so shrinks? Because they had vanquished the natural love of their own bodies, by Divine and supernatural love ... How can man regret to lose that which he despises? Nay, rather he desires to give his life for God, who is his life, and to shed his blood for love of the Blood that was shed for him. -------- St. Catherine of Siena Nothing richer can be offered to God than a good will; for the good will is the originator of all good and is the mother of all virtues; whosoever begins to have that good will has secured all the help he needs for living well. -------- Blessed Albert the Great Better to live in uncertainty of one's own salvation, and yet devote one's self to the service of God and the welfare of souls, than to die this very hour with the certainty of entering into eternal glory ... We must not act in a niggardly way when God shows Himself so liberal to us. -------- St. Ignatius We should not value much what we have given God, since we shall receive for the little we have bestowed upon Him much more in this life and the next. St. Teresa I would willingly endure all the sufferings of this world to be raised a degree higher in Heaven, and to possess the smallest increase of the knowledge of God's greatness. -------- St. Teresa In the Old Law, God would accept no victim as a holocaust, if it had not first been flayed; in like manner, our hearts can never be immolated and sacrificed to God until they shall have been flayed, stripped of this old skin, that is, of their habits, inclinations, repugnances, and superfluous affections, and self-love reduced to ashes and our whole soul converted into flames of heavenly love. -------- St. Francis of Sales The throes and pangs of spiritual birth are painful to nature; our souls must give birth not exteriorly, but interiorly, to the sweetest, the most pleasing, the most beautiful child that could be desired. It is the good Jesus, whom we must form within ourselves. Courage! we must suffer much that He may be born in us. -------- St. Francis of Sales A monastery is an academy of strict correction, where each one should allow himself to be treated, planed, and polished, so that, all the angles being effaced, he may be joined, united, and fastened to the Will of God. -------- St. Francis of Sales In the monastery of the devout life, each one considers himself a novice, and a lifetime is devoted to a probation according to the rule of the order; it is not the solemnity of the vows, but their fulfillment which makes novices professed. -------- St. Francis of Sales VIEW THE BORDER IMAGE OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER LARGE E-MAIL HOME--------------SAINTS www.catholictradition.org/Saints/teachings6.htm