Saint Quote: Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

Owing to the spirit of the world and tepidity, if the Savior returned to earth today to announce His doctrine in person, He would find as many opponents as He did among the Jews.

--Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

Saint Quote: Saint Josephine Bakhita

One day I unwittingly made a mistake that incensed the master's son. He became furious, snatched me violently from my hiding place, and began to strike me ferociously with the lash and his feet Finally he left me half dead, completely unconscious. Some slaves carried me away and lay me on a straw mat, where I remained for over a month.

A woman skilled in this cruel art [tattooing] came to the general's house...our mistress stood behind us, whip in hand. The woman had a dish of white flour, a dish of salt and a razor... When she had made her patterns; the woman took the razor and made incisions along the lines. Salt was poured into each of the wounds... My face was spared, but 6 patterns were designed on my breasts, and 60 more on my belly and arms. I thought I would die, especially when salt was poured in the wounds...it was by a miracle of God I didn't die. He had destined me for better things.

--Saint Josephine Bakhita, describing some miseries during her time as a slave.

Saint Quote: Saint Hilary of Poitiers

Every part of Holy Writ announces through words the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, reveals it through facts and establishes it through examples. ..For it is our Lord who during all the present age, through true and manifest adumbrations, generates, cleanses, sanctified, chooses, separates, or redeems the Church in the Patriarchs, through Adam's slumber, Noah's flood, Melchizedek's blessing, Abraham's justification, Isaac's birth, and Jacob's bondage.

--Saint Hilary of Poitiers

Saint Quote: Saint Paul Miki

The Christian law commands that we forgive our enemies and those who have wronged us. I must therefore say here that I forgive Taikosama. I would rather have all the Japanese become Christians.

--Saint Paul Miki one of the Martyrs of Nagasaki

Saint Quote: Saint Agatha

Jesus Christ, Lord of all things! You see my heart, you know my desires. Possess all that I am - you alone. I am your sheep; make me worthy to overcome the devil.

--Saint Agatha

Saint Quote: Saint Joseph of Leonissa

Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel. This is what Saint Paul says to the Corinthians, 'Clearly you are a letter of Christ which I have delivered, a letter written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh in the heart' (2 Corinthians 3:3). Our heart is the parchment; through my ministry the Holy Spirit is the writer because 'my tongue is nimble as the pen of a skillful scribe'(Psalms 45:2).

-- from a sermon by Saint Joseph of Leonissa

Saint Quote: Saint Aelred

One who speaks the word of God to others ought not aim at vaunting his own knowledge but at discerning how he can build up his hearers. And with a motherly compassion for weaker minds he ought, I might say, prattle to them, descending to the use of baby talk. But the limit of my gifts make it necessary that my hearers stoop down to the poverty of my words.

-- Saint Aelred