Saint Jaime Hilario Barbal

 

 

God be blessed; I'll pray for all of you in heaven. What more could I desire than to die for no other crime but that of being a religious and for having made my contribution to the Christian education of children. Dear father and family, I have been judged and condemned to death. I accept the sentence with joy. No charges have been brought against me. I have been condemned to death only because I am a religious. Do not weep for me, I am not worthy of pity. I shall die for God and for my country. Farewell, I shall be waiting for you in heaven.

-- Saint Jaime Hilario Barbal in a letter to his family after learning of his death sentence

Saint John Baptist de la Salle

 

 

Would we wish that our own hidden sins should be divulged? We ought, then, to be silent regarding those of others.

-- Saint John Baptist de la Salle

Saint John of Damascus

The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: 'But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....' Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory. 

-- Saint John of Damascus

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons

Christ, who was called the Son of God before the ages, was manifested in the fulness of time, in order that He might cleanse us through His blood, who were under the power of sin, presenting us as pure sons to His Father, if we yield ourselves obediently to the chastisement of the Spirit. And in the end of time He shall come to do away with all evil, and to reconcile all things, in order that there may be an end of all impurities.

-- Saint Irenaeus of Lyons

Saint Jerome

For the Lord is gracious and merciful and prefers the conversion of a sinner rather than his death. Patient and generous in his mercy, he does not give in to human impatience but is willing to wait a long time for our repentance.

-- Saint Jerome

Saint Anthony of Padua

Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak. We are full of words but empty of actions, and therefore are cursed by the Lord, since he himself cursed the fig tree when he found no fruit but only leaves. It is useless for a man to flaunt his knowledge of the law if he undermines its teaching by his actions. 

-- Saint Anthony of Padua

Saint Hilary of Poitiers

For Christ teaches that only those who become again as it were little children, and by the simplicity of that age cut off the inordinate affections of vice, can enter the kingdom of heaven. These follow and obey their father, love their mother; are strangers to covetousness, ill-will, hatred, arrogance, and lying, and are inclined easily to believe what they hear. This disposition of affections opens the way to heaven. We must therefore return to the simplicity of little children, in which we shall bear some resemblance to our Lord's humility.

-- Saint Hilary of Poitiers