Saint Francis of Assisi Quote

It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.

-- Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi's patronage: against fire; animals; Catholic Action; dying alone; ecology; environment; families; fire; lacemakers; merchants; peace; zoos; Italy; Assisi, Italy; Colorado; Sante Fe, New Mexico; archdiocese of San Francisco, California; archdiocese of Denver, Colorado; archdiocese of Sante Fe, New Mexico; diocese of Salina, Kansas.

Blessed Charles Spinola Quote

I, who can aver that I now begin to be a disciple of Christ amid the greatest pain and confinement of prison, even when my strength seemed failing from hunger alone, I was always refreshed by such delights of consolation, that I deemed all my sufferings undergone in the divine service richly rewarded. Were I still to pass several years in this dungeon, the time would seem to me short in my intense desire of suffering for His love, who so lavishly rewards the labors of this life and makes even torture itself sweet and desirable. Yet God is to be served chiefly for himself alone, for He is the fountain of all goodness, and merits all our devotion without any hope of reward.

-– Blessed Charles Spinola

Saint Nicholas of Tolentino Quote

The heavens are not pure in the sight of Him Whom I serve; how then shall I, a sinful man, stand before Him?

-– Saint Nicholas of Tolentino

Saint Nicholas of Tolentino's patronage: animals; babies; boatmen; diocese of Cabanatuan, Philippines; dying people; Lambunao, Philippines; Guimbal, Iloilo, mariners; diocese of Mati; holy souls; Philippines; sailors; sick animals; souls in purgatory; diocese of Tandag, Philippines; watermen; patron saint of Surigao City, La Huerta, Parañaque City and Buli and Cupang in Muntinlupa City, San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte a town named after St. Nicholas De Tolentino, Banton, Romblon in the Philippines; patron saint of La Aldea de San Nicolás in the island of Gran Canaria, Canary Island, Spain

Saint Peter Claver Quote

To do the will of God, man must despise his own; the more he dies to himself, the more he will live to God.

– Saint Peter Claver

Saint Peter Claver's patronage: against slavery; foreign missions; black people; race relations; Colombia; diocese of Shreveport, Louisiana; diocese of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Saint Augustine of Hippo Quote

We used our immortality so badly as to incur the penalty of death: Christ used His mortality so well as to restore us to life. The disease was brought in through a woman's corrupted soul: the remedy came through a woman's virgin body. To the same class of opposite remedies it belongs, that our vices are cured by the example of His virtues. On the other hand, the following are, as it were, bandages made in the same shape as the limbs and wounds to which they are applied: He was born of a woman to deliver us who fell through a woman: He came as a man to save us who are men, as a mortal to save us who are mortals, by death to save us who were dead.

– Saint Augustine of Hippo

Saint Augustine of Hippo's patronage: Brewers; diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut; Cagayan de Oro, Philippines; diocese of Kalamazoo, Michigan; printers; city of Saint Augustine, Florida; diocese of Saint Augustine, Florida; sore eyes; diocese of Superior, Wisconsin; theologians; diocese of Tucson, Arizona.

Blessed Giovanni Battista Mazzucconi Quote

I do not know what He is preparing for me in the journey I begin tomorrow. I know one thing only, if He is good and loves me immensely, everything else: calm or storm, danger or safety, life or death, are merely changeable and passing expressions of the beloved immutable, eternal Love. Yes, my beloved brethren, we have another country, another home, a kingdom where we must all meet, where there will no longer be separations or departures, where past sorrows and danger will merely serve to increase our consolation and glory.

-– Blessed Giovanni Battista Mazzucconi, writing before his last missionary journey

Blessed John Henry Newman Quote

I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has;

whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man,

God knows me and calls me by my name.

God has created me to do Him some definite service;

He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.

I have my mission–I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.

Somehow I am necessary for His purposes,

as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his

–if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work;

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons.

He has not created me for naught.

I shall do good, I shall do His work;

I shall be an angel of peace,

a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it,

if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

– Blessed John Henry Newman