This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Wherever there are three persons, even though they are laymen, there is the church. Every man lives by his own faith, and God does not distinguish between classes. Since, in cases of necessity, you have the right to act as a priest, then you must also accept priestly discipline. It is God's will that all of us should be in the right spiritual state, at any time or place, to administer His sacraments.
Affliction | God | Gold | Good | Man | Men | Virtue | Virtue | God | Vice |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
I probably felt more resentment for what I personally was to suffer than for the wrong they were doing to anyone and everyone. But at that time I was determined not to put up with badly behaved people more out of my own interest than because I wanted them to become good people.
Beauty | Eternal | Life | Life | Love | Mystery | Sound | Time | Will | Beauty |
O You who are mad about Your creature! true God and true Man, You have left Yourself wholly to us, as food, so that we will not fall through weariness during our pilgrimage in this life, but will be fortified by You, celestial nourishment.
Abundance | Eternal | Faith | Knowledge | Light | Self-love | Soul |
You are asking for something that would be harmful to your salvation if you had it — so by not getting what you've asked, you really are getting what you want.
Giving |
I have no other desire in this life save to see the honor of God, your peace, and the reformation of Holy Church, and to see the life of grace in every creature that hath reason in itself.
You know that to join two things together there must be nothing between them or there cannot be a perfect fusion. Now realize that this is how God wants our soul to be, without any selfish love of ourselves or of others in between, just as God loves us without anything in between.
Beauty | Eternal | Faith | Giving | Good | Life | Life | Light | Love | Mortal | Obedience | Wisdom | Beauty |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
Each one should confidently make known his need to the other, so that he might find what he needs and minister to him. And each one should love and care for his brother in all those things in which God will give him grace, as a mother loves and cares for her son.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
God sustains every soul and dwells in it substantially, even though it be that of the greatest sinner in the world, and this union is natural. The supernatural union exists when God’s will and the soul’s will are in conformity. Therefore the soul rests transformed in God through love. The illumination of the soul and its union with God corresponds to its purity.
Attentiveness | Father | God | Light | Nothing | Solitude | Soul | Spirit | Will | God |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
You wish to be great, begin from the least. You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility. And how great soever a mass of building one may wish and design to place above it, the greater the building is to be, the deeper does he dig his foundation.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The soul is wearied and fatigued by its desires… the (desires) disturb it, allowing it not to rest in any place or in any thing soever.… the desires and indulgence in them all cause it greater emptiness and hunger.
Experience | Soul |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
You should strive in your prayer for a pure conscience, a will that is wholly with God, and a mind truly set upon Him.
Attention | Awareness | Desire | Experience | Faith | Father | God | Love | Order | Possessions | Reflection | Regard | Soul | Understanding | Wants | Will | God | Awareness | Understand |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
This dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul – called infused contemplation or mystical theology. God secretly teaches the soul and instructs it in perfection of love, without its doing anything. It is the loving wisdom of God, and He prepares it for the union of love with God. This Divine wisdom is night and darkness for the soul, and affliction and torment. When this pure light assails the soul, in order to expel its impurity, the soul feels itself to be so impure and miserable that it believes God to be against it, and things that it has set itself up against God.
Existence | Life | Life | Love | Merit | Soul | War | Worth |
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
What is so bitter and vehement as the torment of love? I mean, those who have become conscious that they have sinned against love suffer greater torment from this than from any fear of punishment. For the sorrow caused in the heart by sin against love is more poignant than any torment.
Compassion | Family | Harm | Heart | Mercy | Prayer | Receive | Sorrow | Tears |
Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL
Consequently a human being is blessed who has virtues, whether or not he has any other blessings besides. If he has virtues and other advantages too, he is blessed in a general sense, as one said who was wise in divine matters. If he has virtues alone and for their own sake, he is blessed in a more circumscribed sense. For some things are thought of in a more circumscribed way, as when we think of two cubits, others in a more general way, as when we think of a heap. For you can take away two measures from a heap, and will be left with a heap. If you take away all bodily and external advantages from the condition of general blessedness, an leave nothing whatever but the virtues, it remains a state of blessedness. For virtue, by itself, is sufficient for happiness. Therefore every bad person is wretched, even if he has all the so-called blessings of the earth, if he is deprived of virtues. And every good person is blessed, even is deprived of all earthly blessings, since he has the radiance of virtue. It is because of this that Lazarus rejoiced, at rest in the bosom of Abraham.
Saint Isaac of Nineveh, also Isaac the Syrian, Isaac of Qatar and Isaac Syrus NULL
As it is not possible to cross over the great ocean without a ship, so no one can attain to love without fear. This filthy sea, which lies between us and the paradise of the heart, we may cross by the boat of repentance, whose oarsmen are those of fear. But if fear's oarsmen do not pilot the boat of repentance whereby we cross over the sea of this world to God, we shall be drowned in the sordid abyss.
Mercy |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The first and principal benefit caused by the arid and dark night of contemplation: the knowledge of oneself and of one’s misery. The soul learns to commune with God with more respect and more courtesy. God will enlighten the soul, giving it knowledge, not only of its lowliness and wretchedness, but of the greatness and excellence of God. He cleanses and frees the understanding that it may understand the truth. From the aridities and voids of this night of the desire, the soul draws spiritual humility. The soul is aware only of its own wretchedness – and esteems neighbors.
Darkness | God | Love | Soul | Spirit | Understanding | Companionship | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
The soul goes about the things of God with much greater freedom and satisfaction of the soul than before it entered the dark night of sense. It now very readily finds in its spirit the most serene and loving contemplation and spiritual sweetness without the labor of meditation. This sweetness overflows into their senses more than was usual… since the sense is now purer. But they also endure many frailties and sufferings and weaknesses of the stomach and are fatigued in spirit. After the second night of the spirit: no raptures and no torments of the body because their senses are now neither clouded nor transported.
Death | Desire | Eternal | Life | Life | Love | Memory | Mind | Occupation | Perfection | Pleasure | Refinement | Soul | Strength | Understanding | Will | Old |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
To reach satisfaction in all, desire satisfaction in nothing. To come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing. To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to enjoy what you have not, you must go by a way in which you enjoy not. To come to the possession you have not, you must go by a way in which you possess not. To come to what you are not, you must go by a way in which you are not.
Cause | Death | Experience | God | Life | Life | Love | Soul | Spirit | God |