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
I define charity as a motion of the soul whose purpose is to enjoy God for His own sake and one’s self and one’s neighbor for the sake of god. Lust, on the other hand is a motion of the soul bent upon enjoying one’s self, one’s neighbor, and any creature without reference to God.
Evil | Object | Shame | Soul | Wickedness |
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference.
Human nature | Nature | Occupation | Soul | Will |
Saint Anthony of Padua or Anthony of Lisbon, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões NULL
The Glorious Virgin did not have a stain in her birth because she was santified in her mother's womb and safeguarded there by angels.
And you may be certain of this — unless you really are more ignorant than anyon — that the arm of holy Church, though it may well be weak, is not broken. From its weakness this arm always emerges strengthened, as do those who stay close to it.
The soul, as soon as she comes to know Me, reaches out to love her neighbors.
The soul is as obedient as she is humble, and as humble as she is obedient.
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
God is awakened in the soul. God breathes in the soul. Wisdom is more active than all active things. Oh, how happy is this soul that is ever conscious of God resting and reposing within its breast!
Care | God | Journey | Love | Means | Order | Respect | Rule | Soul | Spirit | Time | Respect | God |
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
By occasions the strong become weak. To converse too frequently with women, and not suffer by it, is as hard as to take fire into one's bosom, and not to be burnt. What has a religious man to do with women, unless it be when he hears their confession, or gives them necessary spiritual instructions? He that thinks himself secure, is undone; the devil finding [something] to take hold on, though it be but a hair, raises a dreadful war.
Saint Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone NULL
Should there be a brother anywhere in the world who has sinned, no matter how great soever his fault may be, let him not go away after he has once seen thy face without showing pity towards him; and if he seek not mercy, ask him if he does not desire it. And by this I will know if you love God and me.
Body | Day | Death | Devil | Guilt | Heart | Knowledge | Lord | Man | Nothing | Sin | Soul | Thought | Will | World | Think | Thought |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
All these sensory means and exercises of the faculties must be left behind and in silence so that God Himself may affect the divine union of the soul. As a result one has to follow this method of disencumbering, emptying, and depriving the faculties of their natural rights and operations to make room for the inflow and illumination of the supernatural. If a person does not turn his eyes from his natural capacity, he will not attain to so lofty a communication; rather he will hinder it. If it is true that the soul must journey by knowing God through what He is not, rather than through what He is, it must journey, insofar as possible, by way of the denial and rejection of natural and supernatural apprehensions. This is our task now with the memory. We must draw it away from its natural props and capacities and raise it above itself (above all distinct knowledge and apprehensible possession) to supreme hope in the incomprehensible God. The annihilation of the memory in regard to all forms (including the five senses) is an absolute requirement for union with God. This union cannot be wrought without a complete separation of the memory from all forms that are not God. In great forgetfulness it is absorbed in a supreme good. Once he has the habit of union he no longer experiences these lapses of memory in matters concerning his moral and natural life. All the operations of the memory and other faculties in this state are divine.
Faith | Love | Progress | Purity | Reason | Sense | Simplicity | Soul | Will | Intellect |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
In passive joy the will finds itself rejoicing without any clear and direct understanding of the object of its joy.
Appetite | Desire | Soul | Understanding | Will | Understand |
Saint Augustine, aka Augustine of Hippo, St. Austin, Bishop of Hippo NULL
Such is the strength of the burden of habit. Here I have the power to be but do not wish it. There I wish to be but lacks the power. On both grounds, I'm in misery.
Death | God | Happy | Life | Life | Search | Soul | World | God |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
If the memory is annihilated, the devil is powerless, and it liberates us from a lot of sorrow, affliction and sadness.
Blessings | Desire | God | Heart | Knowledge | Means | Meditation | Noise | Nothing | Pleasure | Quiet | Sense | Silence | Soul | Spirit | Thought | Will | Wisdom | Work | God | Thought |
Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL
As God sets the soul in this dark night… He allows it not to find attraction or sweetness in anything whatsoever. God transfers to the spirit the good things and the strength of the senses… if it is not immediately conscious of spiritual sweetness and delight, but only of aridity and lack of sweetness, the reason for this is the strangeness of the exchange. #6. If those souls to whom this comes to pass knew how to be quiet at this time… then they would delicately experience this inward refreshment in that ease and freedom from care… it is like the air which, if one would close one’s hand upon it, escapes. In this state of contemplation… it is God Who is now working in the soul. He binds its interior faculties, and allows it not to cling to the understanding, nor to have delight in the will, nor to reason with the memory. God communicates… by pure spirit. From this time forward imagination and fancy can find no support in any meditation.
Contemplation | Darkness | Faith | God | Grace | Heart | Love | Meditation | Noise | Order | Pleasure | Practice | Progress | Rest | Sense | Silence | Solitude | Soul | Thought | Understanding | Will | God | Contemplation | Obstacle | Thought |
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 |
The soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love something because love is the stuff she is made of, and through love I created her.
O inestimable charity! Even as You, true God and true Man, gave Yourself entirely to us, so also You left Yourself entirely for us, to be our food, so that during our earthly pilgrimage we would not faint with weariness, but would be strengthened by You, our celestial Bread. O man, what has your God left you? He has left you Himself, wholly God and wholly Man, concealed under the whiteness of bread. O fire of love! Was it not enough for You to have created us to Your image and likeness, and to have recreated us in grace through the Blood of Your Son, without giving Yourself wholly to us as our Food, O God, Divine Essence? What impelled You to do this? Your charity alone. It was not enough for You to send Your Word to us for our redemption; neither were You content to give Him us as our Food, but in the excess of Your love for Your creature, You gave to man the whole Divine essence . . .