Sage Advice From a Smart Frenchman

When assaulted by any vice, we must embrace the practice of the contrary virtue, and refer all the others to it, by which means we shall overcome our enemy, and at the same time advance in all the virtues. (. . .) For as the wild boar, to sharpen his tusks, whets and polishes them with his other teeth, and by this means sharpens all at the same time, so a virtuous man, having undertaken to perfect himself in the virtue of which he stands most in need for his defence, files and polishes it by the exercise of the other virtues, which whilst they help to sharpen that one, make all of them become more excellent and better polished.

– St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life

Acknowledgement

By Francisco Bayeu y Subías – [3], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50771068

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Happy 500th Birthday, St. Teresa of Avila!

“Peter Paul Rubens 138” by Peter Paul Rubens – [1]. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Paul_Rubens_138.jpg#/media/File:Peter_Paul_Rubens_138.jpg

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing make you afraid.
All things are passing.
God alone never changes.
Patience gains all things.
If you have God you will want for nothing.
God alone suffices.

– The Bookmark of St. Teresa of Avila

Image and text from Wikipedia

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First ‘Quote of the Day’ for 2015

In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.

-Bl. John Henry Newman, from “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine”

Image from Wikipedia — Full Citation:

“John Henry Newman circa 1863” by Not stated – The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman: https://archive.org/stream/a612281201warduoft#page/568/mode/2up. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Henry_Newman_circa_1863.jpg#/media/File:John_Henry_Newman_circa_1863.jpg

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An Irish Christmas Blessing for All of You

Deep peace of the running waves to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.Deep peace of the smiling stars to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the watching shepherds to you.
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.

Image from Wikipedia

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A Quote I Try to Live By

Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer.-St. Paul, Romans 12:12

 

Image from Wikipedia

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The Pope and the Disabled

Pope Francis’ general intentions for the month of September, 2014:

That the mentally disabled may receive the love and help they need for a dignified life.

Please Lord, let it be so.

Image from Wikipedia

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Quote of the Day, 8/20/14

We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.  We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it … Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past.  But … (i)f Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering.  The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.

-C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

 

Image from Wikipedia

 

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