Be kind

"Be kind, be kind, and you will be saints."

--Jan Van Ruysbroeck

Christian virtue

"Christian virtue is a question not so much of doing as of being.  When you hear it said of someone "He's a different man since he fell in love" you have a clue what must happen to the Christian.  As you are, so you will act:  love affects one's being, and therefore, in consequence, one's behavior--even though you do the same things you will do them differently--and it is when you can say "I live, now not I"  that you can go on to say "I can do all things";  and you can say the latter because you add, with the docility of a child, "in Him who strengtheneth me."

--Rev. Gerald Vann in The Divine Pity: A Study in the Social Implications of the Beatitudes

They shall be comforted

"But they that mourn, they shall be comforted;  and they shall be comforted, not simply by a subsequent reward, a belated consolation prize for what they have suffered, but because their sorrow itself will be turned into joy even on earth, the sort of joy that gives life and strength and courage and exhilaration."

-- Rev. Gerald Vann, O.P. in The Divine Pity:  A Study in the Social Implications of the Beatitudes

The tower to be built

"...before setting to work for God and to fight against the devil, first calculate your forces; and if you consider yourself well enough equipped to begin, you are a fool, because the tower to be built costs an outrageous price, and the enemy coming out to meet you is an angel, before whom you are of no account. Get to know yourself so well that you cannot contemplate yourself without flinching. Then there will be room for hope. In the sure knowledge that you are obliged to do the impossible in Him who strengthens you, then you are ready for a task which can be performed only through the Cross."

--Jacques Maritain, as quoted by Father Gerald Vann, O.P. in The Seven Swords

Seven swords

It is true, O Lord, that in the work of human redemption Thou didst suffer alone, and that there was not a man who sufficiently pitied Thee; but there was a woman with Thee, and she was Thine own Mother; she suffered in her heart all that Thou didst endure in Thy body."

--Richard of Saint Lawrence


"Over the iron forest
He saw Our Lady stand;
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart--
But one was in her hand."

--from G. K. Chesterton's "Ballad of the White Horse"

Virgin most sorrowful, pray for us.

You are a Soul

“You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”

--C.S.Lewis

Ash Wednesday

"Grant us, O Lord, to begin with holy fasts the campaign of our Christian warfare:  that, as we do battle with the spirits of evil, we may be protected by the help of self-denial, through Christ our Lord. Amen."

--Prayer recited after the distribution of ashes, from the Mass of Ash Wednesday.