This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The service you cannot render me you must do for your neighbors. Thus it will be evident that you have me within your soul by grace.
Heaven |
Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL
The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred . . . let me sow love. Where there is injury . . . pardon. Where there is doubt . . . faith. Where there is despair . . . hope. Where there is darkness . . . light. Where there is sadness . . . joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled . . . as to console, To be understood . . . as to understand; To be loved . . . as to love, For It is in giving . . . that we receive. It is in pardoning . . . that we are pardoned, It is in dying . . . that we are born to eternal life.
Consolation | Heaven |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Too late came I to love thee, O thou Beauty so ancient and so fresh, yea too late came I to love thee. And behold, thou wert within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee: I ugly rushed headlong upon those beautiful things thou hast made. Thou indeed wert with me; but I was not with thee: these beauties kept me far enough from thee: even those, which unless they were in thee, should not be at all.
For by the light of understanding within your light I have tasted and seen your depth, eternal Trinity, and the beauty of your creation.
Heaven |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
What then is true joy? I return from Perugia and arrive here in the dead of night; and it is winter time, muddy and so cold that icicles have formed on the edges of my habit and keep striking my legs, and blood flows from such wounds. And all covered with mud and cold, I come to the gate and after I have knocked and called for some time, a brother comes and asks: 'Who are you?' I answer: 'Brother Francis.' And he says: 'Go away; this is not a proper hour for going about; you may not come in.' And when I insist, he answers: 'Go away, you are a simple and a stupid person; we are so many and we have no need of you. You are certainly not coming to us at this hour!' And I stand again at the door and say: 'For the love of God, take me in tonight.' And he answers: 'I will not, Go to the Crosiers' place and ask there.' I tell you this: If I had patience and did not become upset, there would be true joy in this and true virtue and the salvation of the soul.'
God | Heaven | Revelation | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
It might possibly now lose, through defective use, what before it lost through excess. The soul loses the strength of its passions and concupiscence and it becomes sterile because it no longer consults its likings. It practices patience and longsuffering. Four benefits of the dark night: delight of peace, habitual remembrance and thought of God, cleanness and purity of soul, and the practice of the virtues. Often God communicates to the soul, when it is least expecting it, the purest spiritual sweetness and love, together with a spiritual knowledge which is sometimes very delicate (and cannot be perceived by sense).
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
There is no prayer so quickly heard as the prayer whereby a man asks to be reconciled with those who are wroth with him. For when he charges himself with the offence, this prayer is immediately answered.
John Chrysostom, fully Saint John Chrysostom
Prayer should be the means by which I, at all times, receive all that I need, and, for this reason, be my daily refuge, my daily consolation, my daily joy, my source of rich and inexhaustible joy in life.
Every judgment of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins.