Saint Quote: Blessed Luigi Guanella

O my Jesus, draw me entirely to you. Draw me with all the love of my heart. If I knew that one fiber of my heart did not palpitate for you, I would tear it out at any cost. But I know that I could not speak without your help. Draw me, O my Jesus, draw me completely. I know it well, my heart cannot rest until it rests in your heart.

--Blessed Luigi Guanella

Chair of Saint Peter

Portable chair preserved at the Vatican and believed to be a chair used by Saint Peter, the extant testimony referring to it dating from the 2nd century. The feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Rome has been celebrated from the early days of the Christian era on 18 January, in commemoration of the day when Saint Peter held his first service in Rome. The feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Antioch, commemorating his foundation of the See of Antioch, has also been long celebrated at Rome, on 22 February. At each place a chair (cathedra) was venerated which the Apostle had used while presiding at Mass. One of the chairs is referred to about 600 by an Abbot Johannes who had been commissioned by Pope Gregory the Great to collect in oil from the lamps which burned at the graves of the Roman martyrs. One of these phials, preserved in the cathedral treasury of Monza, Italy, had a label reading, "oleo de sede ubi prius sedit sanctus Petrus" (oils from the chair where Saint Peter first sat). The Mass for both feast days is the same; the Collect is as follows:

"Oh, God, who, together with the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, didst bestow on blessed Peter Thy Apostle the pontificate of binding and loosing, grant that by the aid of his intercession we may be released from the yoke of our sins."

Saint Quote: Saint Antony the Abbot

The devil dreads fasting, prayer, humility, and good works: he is not able even to stop my mouth who speak against him. The illusions of the devil soon vanish, especially if a man arms himself with the Sign of the Cross. The devils tremble at the Sign of the Cross of our Lord, by which He triumphed over and disarmed them.

--Saint Antony the Abbot

Saint Quote: Saint John Vianney

We must always choose the most perfect. Two good works present themselves to be done, one in favour of a person we love, the other in favour of a person who has done us some harm. Well, we must give preference to the latter.

--Saint John Vianney

Saint Quote: Saint Leopold Bogdan Mandic

We have in heaven the heart of a mother, The Virgin, our Mother, who at the foot of the Cross suffered as much as possible for a human creature, understands our troubles and consoles us.

--Saint Leopold Bogdan Mandic

Saint Quote: Blessed Peter Donders

After I had spent about ten months in the city of Paramaribo, his Lordship the Bishop sent me, along with two other Fathers, to work from then on in Batavia. During this time it pleased God to offer to the till now neglected Indians—the Arrowaks and the Warros as well as the Caribs—the possibility of knowing and loving Him. But, sadly, expectations were not fulfilled, except among the Arrowaks. Even there, progress was moderate; because of the lack of sufficient instruction, it was not what it could have been... But God is all-powerful; Mary, the refuge of sinners, is also their mother; we must pray and do penance and hope in God and his Holy Mother; for the saints say: From the day on which Christ died souls must be bought by blood. If only, by sacrificing my own life, I could bring all people to know and love God as he deserves. But let God's holy will be done in all things. The Holy Will of God and perfect obedience in all things have always been my consolation, and I hope that it may still be so at the hour of my death. Amen.

--Blessed Peter Donders

Saint Quote: Venerable Pope Pius XII

Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, a particular form of State, or the repositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the worldly community... whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God.

--Venerable Pope Pius XII

Saint Quote: Pope Saint Gregory VII

Now, my dearest brothers, listen carefully to what I tell you. All those throughout the world who are numbered as Christian and who truly acknowledge the Christian faith know and believe that the blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, is the father of all Christians and, after Christ, the first shepherd, and that the holy Roman Church is the mother and teacher of all the churches. Therefore, if you believe this and hold to it without hesitation, I ask you and enjoin upon you by Almighty God - I your brother and unworthy teacher as I am - to support and assist your father and your mother if you wish to have, through them, the remission of all your sins, along with blessings and grace in this world and in the life to come.

May almighty God, from whom all good things come, continually enlighten your minds and fill them with love for him and for your neighbor, so that by your devotion you may deserve to make this father and mother of whom I have spoken your debtors and enter without shame into their company. Amen.

from a letter by Pope Saint Gregory VII

Saint Quote: Saint Columba

O Lord, grant us that love which can never die, which will enkindle our lamps but not extinguish them, so that they may shine in us and bring light to others. Most dear Savior, enkindle our lamps that they may shine forever in your temple. May we receive unquenchable light from you so that our darkness will be illuminated and the darkness of the world will be made less. Amen.

--Saint Columba

Saint Quote: Blessed Alojzije Stepinac

We always stressed in public life the principles of God's eternal law regardless of whether we spoke about Croats, Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox or whoever else.... The Catholic Church does not recognize races that rule and races that are enslaved.

-- Blessed Alojzije Stepinac, 1943

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

Saint Quote: Blessed Maria Dominica Mantovani

The Holy Family, for the great and mysterious project [that God is calling it to], has chosen me as its Cofoundress, knowing that the Lord uses the least qualified, little, unknown instruments to do great works. I am tranquil and convinced that the Institute, the work of God, will be provided for and guided by Him.

-- Blessed Maria

Saint Quote: Saint Basil the Great

The bread which you use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the acts of charity that you do not perform are so many injustices that you commit.

--Saint Basil the Great

Saint Quote: Saint Boniface

In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandons ship but to keep her on her course.

Let us stand fast in what is right, and prepare our souls for trial. Let us wait upon God's strengthening aid and say to him: "O Lord, you have been our refuge in all generations."

Let us trust in him who has placed this burden upon us. What we ourselves cannot bear let us bear with the help of Christ. For he is all-powerful, and he tells us: "My yoke is easy, and my burden light."

Let us continue the fight on the day of the Lord. The days of anguish and of tribulation have overtaken us; if God so wills, "let us die for the holy laws of our fathers," so that we may deserve to obtain an eternal inheritance with them.

--from a letter by Saint Boniface

Saint Quote: Saint John Fisher

Had you but tasted one drop of the sweetness which inebriates the souls of those religious from their worship of this Sacrament, you would never have written as you have, nor have apostatized from the faith that you formerly professed.

-- Saint John Fisher, writing to the bishop of Winchester

Saint Quote: Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

-- Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Saint Quote: Saint Amadeus of Lausanne

For she was full of grace and blessed among women. She alone merited to conceive the true God of true God, whom as a virgin, she brought forth, to whom as a virgin she gave milk, fondling him in her lap, and in all things she waited upon him with loving care.

-- Saint Amadeus of Lausanne

Saint Quote: Saint Angela Merici

As our Savior says: "A good tree is not able to produce bad fruit."

He says: A good tree, that is, a good heart as well as a soul on fire with charity, can do nothing but good and holy works. For this reason Saint Augustine said: "Love, and do what you will," namely, possess love and charity and then do what you will. It is as if he had said: Charity is not able to sin.

Mothers of children, even if they have a thousand, carry each and every one fixed in their hearts, and because of the strength of their love they do not forget any of them. In fact, it seems that the more children they have the more their love and care for each one is increased.

Be sincerely kind to every one according to the words of our Lord: "Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart." Thus you are imitating God, of whom it is said: "He has disposed all things pleasantly." And again Jesus said: "My yoke is easy and my burden light."

--from Spiritual Testament by Saint Angela Merici

Saint Quote: Blessed Joseph Kowalski

Do not worry about me; I am in God’s hands. I want to assure you that I feel His help at every step. Despite the present situation, I am happy and completely at peace.

--Blessed Joseph, writing to his parents from the concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland

Saint Quote: Saint Jeanne Marie Kerguin

Do not be afraid. Death is only God who is passing by.

--Saint Jeanne Marie

Saint Quote: Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

May the comfort and grace of the Holy Spirit be yours for ever, most honored lady. Your letter found me lingering still in this region of the dead, but now I must rouse myself to make my way on to heaven at last, and to praise God for ever in the land of the living; indeed I had hoped that before this time my journey there would have been over. If charity, as Saint Paul says, means "to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are glad," then, dearest mother, you shall rejoice exceedingly that God in his grace and his love for you is showing me the path to true happiness, and assuring me that I shall never lose him.

Take care above all things, most honored lady, not to insult God's boundless loving kindness; you would certainly do this if you mourned as dead one living face to face with God, one whose prayers can bring you in your troubles more powerful aid than they ever could on earth. And our parting will not be for long; we shall see each other again in heaven; we shall be united with our Savior; there we shall praise him with heart and soul, sing of his mercies for ever, and enjoy eternal happiness.

--from a letter to his mother by Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Saint Quote: Blessed Nikolaus Gross

"Sometimes, my heart becomes heavy and the task appears insoluble if I measure my own human imperfection and inadequacy against the greatness of the obligation and the weight of the responsibility. If a generation must pay the highest price, death, for its short life, we look for the answer in ourselves in vain. We find it only in Him in whose hand we are safe in life and in death. We never know what problems are waiting to test the power and strength of our souls.... Man's ways lie in obscurity. But even darkness is not without light. Hope and faith, which always hasten ahead of us, already have a presentiment of the breaking of a new dawn. If we know that the best thing in us, the soul, is immortal, then we also know that we shall meet each other again".

--Blessed Nikolaus Gross

Saint Quote: Saint Vincent Pallotti

You must be holy in the way that God asks you to be holy. God does not ask you to be a Trappist monk or a hermit. He wills that you sanctify the world and your everyday life.

--Saint Vincent Pallotti

Saint Quote: Blessed Alphonsa of India

Grains of wheat, when ground in the mill, turn in to flour. With this flour we make the wafer of the holy Eucharist. Grapes, when crushed in the wine press, yield their juice. This juice turns into wine. Similarly, suffering so crushes us that we turn into better human beings.

--Blessed Alphonsa of India to novices

Saint Quote: Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi

Yourself and your wife should keep always before your eyes that fact that you are creatures, God’s own creation. As a man’s handiwork belongs to him, so do we all belong to God, and should accordingly have no other will but His. He is a Father, a very kind Father indeed. All his plans are for the good of His children. We may not often see how they are. That does not matter. Leave yourselves in His hands, not for a year, nor for two years, but as long as you have to live on earth. If you confide in Him fully and sincerely He will take special care of you.

--Blessed Tansi’s letter to his houseboy

Saint Quote: Saint John Chrysostom

When you are before the altar where Christ reposes, you ought no longer to think that you are amongst men; but believe that there are troops of angels and archangels standing by you, and trembling with respect before the sovereign Master of Heaven and earth. Therefore, when you are in church, be there in silence, fear, and veneration.

--Saint John Chrysostom

Saint Quote: Saint Jaime Hilario

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 writing to his family immediately after learning of his death sentence

Saint Quote: Blessed Bartholomew Longo

You, what have you done by taking Christ out of the schools? You have produced enemies of social order, subversives. On the contrary, what have we gained by putting Christ into the schools of the children of criminals? We have transformed these misfortunate ones into honest and virtuous young people that you wanted to abandon to their sad fate or toss into insane asylums!

-- Blessed Bartholomew, writing to a group of criminologists about his schools

Saint Quote: Saint John Damascene

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 Quote: Saint Francis of Paola

Fix your minds on the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Inflamed with love for us, he came down from heaven to redeem us. For our sake he endured every torment of body and soul and shrank from no bodily pain. He himself gave us an example of perfect patience and love. We, then, are to be patient in adversity.

Take pains to refrain from sharp words. Pardon one another so that later on you will not remember the injury. The recollection of an injury is itself wrong. It adds to our anger, nurtures our sins and hates what is good. It is a rusty arrow and poison for the soul. It puts all virtue to flight.

Be peace-loving. Peace is a precious treasure to be sought with great zeal. You are well aware that our sins arouse God's anger. You must change your life, therefore, so that God in his mercy will pardon you. What we conceal from men is known to God. Be converted, then, with a sincere heart. Live your life that you may receive the blessing of the Lord. Then the peace of God our Father will be with you always.

--from a letter by Saint Francis of Paola

Saint Quote: Saint Vincent de Paul

The Church teaches us that mercy belongs to God. Let us implore Him to bestow on us the spirit of mercy and compassion, so that we are filled with it and may never lose it. Only consider how much we ourselves are in need of mercy.

--Saint Vincent de Paul

Saint Quote: Saint Ignatius of Loyola

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity.

--Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Saint Quote: Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

Since Mary produced the head of the elect, Jesus Christ, she must also produce the members of that head, that is, all true Christians. A mother does not conceive a head without members, nor members without a head. If anyone, then, wishes to become a member of Jesus Christ, and consequently be filled with grace and truth , he must be formed in Mary through the grace of Jesus Christ, which she possesses with a fullness enabling her to communicate it abundantly to true members of Jesus Christ, her true children.

--Saint Louis Marie de Montfort

Saint Quote: Saint John Cantius

Avoid slander because it is difficult to retract. Avoid offending anyone for to ask forgiveness is not delightful.

--Saint John Cantius

Saint Quote: Saint Brigid of Ireland

I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present. I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts. I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven's family drinking it through all eternity.

--Saint Brigid of Ireland

Saint Quote: Saint Augustine of Hippo

Let us understand that God is a physician, and that suffering is a medicine for salvation, not a punishment for damnation.

--Saint Augustine

Saint Quote: Saint Apollinaris

We therefore grossly deceive ourselves in not allotting more time to the study of divine truths. It is not enough barely to believe them, and let our thoughts now and then glance upon them: that knowledge which shows us heaven, will not bring us to the possession of it, and will deserve punishments, not rewards, if it remain slight, weak, and superficial. By serious and frequent meditation it must be concocted, digested, and turned into the nourishment of our affections, before it can be powerful and operative enough to change them, and produce the necessary fruit in our lives. For this all the saints affected solitude and retreats from the noise and hurry of the world, as much as their circumstances allowed them.

-- Saint Apollinaris

Saint Quote: Saint Francis of Assisi

Jesus is happy to come with us, as truth is happy to be spoken, as life to be lived, as light to be lit, as love is to be loved, as joy to be given, as peace to be spread.

-- Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Quote: Saint Polycarp of Smyrna

Lord God almighty, Father of Jesus Christ, your dear Son through whom we have come to know you, God of the angels and powers, God of all creation, God of those who live in your presence, the race of the just: I bless you. You have considered me worthy of this day and hour, worthy to be numbered with the martyrs and to drink the cup of your Anointed One, and thus to rise and live forever, body and soul, in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit.

--Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, Bishop and Martyr, his prayer before his martyrdom.

Saint Quote: Saint Genoveva Torres Morales

I loved freedom of heart very much, and worked and am working to achieve it fully. It does the soul so much good that every effort is nothing compared with this free condition of the heart.

--Saint Genoveva Torres Morales

Saint Quote: Blessed Father Damien de Veuster

Here I am a priest, dear parents, here I am a missionary in a corrupt, heretical, idolatrous country. How great my obligations are! Ah! do not forget this poor priest running night and day over the volcanoes night and day in search of strayed sheep. Pray night and day for me, I beg You.

--Blessed Father Damien de Veuster (Father Damien the Leper)

Saint Quote: 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.

But the apostles "spoke as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech." Happy the man whose words issue from the Holy Spirit and not from himself!

We should speak, then, as the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of speech. Our humble and sincere request to the Spirit for ourselves should be that we may bring the day of Pentecost to fulfillment, insofar as he infuses us with his grace, by using our bodily senses in a perfect manner by keeping the commandments. Likewise we shall request that we may be filled with a keen sense of sorrow and with fiery tongues for confessing the faith so our deserved reward may be to stand in the blazing splendor of the saints and to look upon the triune God.

--from a sermon by Saint Anthony of Padua

Saint Quote: Saint Gregory of Nazianzen

Let us not esteem worldly prosperity or adversity as things real or of any moment, but let us live elsewhere, and raise all our attention to Heaven; esteeming sin as the only true evil, and nothing truly good, but virtue which unites us to God.

--Saint Gregory Nazianzen

Saint Quote: Blessed Emilian Kowcz

With the exception of heaven, this is the only place I wish to be. Here we are all the same: Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Russians. I am the only priest. When I celebrate the liturgy, they pray for all, each one in his own language. Doesn't God understand all languages?

--Father Emilian writing to his children from the concentration camp