The Teaching [Wisdom] of the Saints http://www.catholictradition.org/Classics/wisdom1.htm by a Parish Priest Taken From The Catholic Church, the Teacher of Mankind Imprimatur, 1905
1. FAITH; HOPE; CHARITY FAITH We should submit ourselves to the Church so completely, that if we clearly perceived a thing to be white and she were to declare it to be black, we should, with her, declare it black. -----St. Ignatius. O Holy Mother! O Church of Rome! We poor ignorant creatures, we knew thee not. We knew not thy zeal, nor thy goodness, nor thy labors for our salvation. Thou shewest us the way to Heaven, and the way alone taught by thee is the true way. He who follows it cannot go astray nor stumble against a stone. He, on the contrary, who seeks another way, shall only find eternal perdition. -----B. Giles of Assisi. Faith is a great virtue; but without charity it can be of no use to us. Keep and preserve, with the utmost care, the precious gift of true faith, pure faith, faith without reproach. Let this burning, fervent, and invincible faith, which obtained an immortal crown for the Holy Confessors, be the immortal ornament of your soul. -----St. Bernard. Only believe, and you have already found what you seek. In truth, what does Faith not find? It reaches the unapproachable, it discovers the unknown, it comprehends the unsearchable, it has the secret of arriving at the ends of things, and it has but to dilate its bosom to hold even eternity in its embrace. -----St. Bernard. The soul is elevated to God by means of a lively faith, that secret and private staircase, of which all the steps are hidden under a mystery impenetrable to the senses or the understanding. Therefore the soul renounces their feeble help to attach itself only to faith, which penetrates the deep things of God: hence its disguise. It transforms the principle of its knowledge, hence the safety of its passage; so that it has nothing to fear from temporal things, from reason, or from the devil. -----St. John of the Cross. Faith is a lamp which gives us spiritual light and warmth. -----St. Thomas Faith resembles a lamp. As a lamp lights the whole house, so the light of Faith illuminates the whole soul. -----St. Chrysostom. If we do not believe God, whom shall we believe? God ought to be believed on His Word. -----St. Ambrose. Reason is the eye of the soul; but like the bodily eye, it needs light in order to see; and how can it see divine things clearly, if deprived of the light of divine revelation? -----St. Augustine. Faith is an altar; nothing is pleasing to God unless it be offered to Him in a spirit of Faith. -----St. Thomas. A tree cannot grow without roots; a building cannot be raised without a foundation; every river must flow from a source. So the Christian life and virtues can neither exist nor flourish, nor become a source of life, unless they proceed from Faith. -----St. Augustine. Your heart is like to a ship. To have Jesus on board is to have Faith in your heart. If your faith slumbers, Jesus slumbers also, and in this case you are in danger of shipwreck. -----St. Augustine. As a vessel that has no anchor is tossed about by the wind, so our mind, when not anchored to Faith, is continually agitated by the wind of human opinions and doctrines. -----St. Gregory the Great. A virtuous life is to the soul what food is to the body. For as our body cannot live without food, so Faith cannot subsist without good works. -----St. Chrysostom. Hold in your hand the lantern of Faith; and let the flame of Charity shine from it, to shew you what you must do, and what you must avoid. -----St. Augustine. The Church that cannot err, and the Faith that cannot fail, is the Roman Church, and the faith of the Roman Church, whether believed in Rome or in other parts of the world. -----St. Antoninus. As in the sea there are islands which are fruitful and furnish good harbors for the shelter of mariners, who fly to them and once having reached them are secured from the tossing of the tempest; so God has given to the world a holy Church, in whose safe harbor the lovers of truth seek refuge, as well as all those who desire to be saved, and to escape the dreadful wrath of God. And as there are other islands which want water, and are covered with barren rocks, uninhabitable by man and destructive to sailors, on which their ships are dashed to pieces; so likewise are there erroneous doctrines and heresies which destroy those who are seduced and drawn aside by them. -----St. Theophilus to the learned Antolychus. <*}}}>< <http://www.holypostage.com/>Custom Faith-based U.S. Postage <*}}}>< <*}}}>< <http://www.holypostage.com/theblog/join-the-network/>The Network Directory <*}}}>< <*}}}>< <http://astore.amazon.com/halthekin-20>Catholic on Amazon <*}}}>< <*}}}>< <http://www.halfthekingdom.org/on+allposters+today.html>on AllPosters today <*}}}>< + <*}}}>< <http://www.holypostage.com/>Holy Postage <*}}}>< <*}}}><<http://www.halfthekingdom.org/>Half the <http://www.halfthekingdom.org/>Kingdom!<*}}}>< + "The fruit of abortion is nuclear war" - Bl. 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