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 writing to his family after learning of his death sentence

Saint John Bosco

No matter how good food is, if poison is mixed with it, it may cause the death of him who eats it. So it is with conversation. A single bad word, an evil action, an unbecoming joke, is often enough to harm one or more young listeners, and may later cause them to lose God's grace.

-- Saint John Bosco

Saint Teresa of Avila

We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.

-- Saint Teresa of Avila

Saint Francis de Sales

God takes pleasure to see you take your little steps; and like a good father who holds his child by the hand, He will accommodate His steps to yours and will be content to go no faster than you.

-- Saint Francis de Sales

Saint Clare of Assisi

Love God, serve God: everything is in that.

-- Saint Clare of Assisi

Saint Gregory Nazianzen on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Today let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of men, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

-- Saint Gregory Nazianzen from a sermon on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys

God is not satisfied if we preserve the love we owe our neighbour; we must preserve our neighbour in the love he ought to have for us.

-- Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys