If we are going to find lasting solutions to difficult conflicts or external wars we find ourselves in, we first need to find our way out of the internal wars that are poisoning our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward others. If we can’t put an end to the violence within us, there is no hope for putting an end to the violence without. – The Anatomy of Peace
To pardon an injustice received is to heal the wound in your own heart. – St. Vincent de Paul (as quoted in I Believe in Love)
Do not sow a crop of good intentions in your neighbor’s garden, but cultivate your own with diligence. – St. Francis de Sales
…the Church of today does not need any new reformers. The Church needs new saints. – St. John Paul the Great as quoted in The Ratzinger Report
You say the times are evil… improve yourselves and the times will be better. You are the times. – St. Augustine
Be the change that you wish to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi
Don’t say: ‘That person gets on my nerves.’ Think: ‘That person sanctifies me.’ – St. Josemaria Escriva
Let me have too deep a sense of humor ever to be proud. Let me know my absurdity before I act absurdly. Let me realize that when I am humble I am most human, most truthful, and most worthy of your consideration. – Fr. Daniel Lord, S.J.
Despair will never be ours if we believe in the power of the sacrament of Penance and tap into it very often. This sacrament helps us avoid both extremes – the presumption of the Pharisees and the despair of Judas – and it keeps us, with St. Peter, int he healthy center. Contrite? Yes, but confident in the Lord’s mercy. Aware of the sin? You bet, but equally aware of Christ’s desire to forgive. Repentant? You bet, but renewed as well. And for us, this moment of honesty and healing takes place, concretely and personally, in the sacrament of Penance. – Archbishop Timothy Dolan, To Whom Shall We Go
One cannot live without seeking forgiveness, or at least, one cannot live at peace, especially in the family. We wrong one another every day. We must take into account these mistakes, due to our frailty and our selfishness. However, what we are asked to do is to promptly heal the wounds that we cause, to immediately reweave the bonds that break within the family. If we wait too long, everything becomes more difficult. There is a simple secret to healing wounds and to avoiding recriminations. It is this: do not let the day end without apologizing, without making peace between husband and wife, between parents and children, between brothers and sisters… between daughters- and mothers-in-law! If we learn to apologize promptly and to give each other mutual forgiveness, the wounds heal, the marriage grows stronger, and the family becomes an increasingly stronger home, which withstands the shocks of our smaller or greater misdeeds. This is why there is no need for a long speech, as a caress is enough: one caress and everything is over and one can start afresh. But do not end the day at war!
If we learn to live this way in the family, we can also do so outside, wherever we may be. It is easy to be skeptical about this. Many people — even Christians — think it is an exaggeration. It is said: yes, they are fine words, but it is impossible to put them into practice. But thanks be to God it is not so. Indeed, it is precisely in receiving forgiveness from God that we in turn are capable of forgiving others. This is why Jesus has us repeat these words each time we recite the Our Father prayer, that is, every day. And it is crucial that, in a sometimes pitiless society, there be places, such as the family, in which to learn to forgive one another. – Pope Francis, General Audience, November 4, 2015
It matters very little if you approach the Sacraments with sensible fervor, provided that you replace this with deep and sincere humility. Without this humility there is nothing more despicable in God’s eyes than ourselves, but with it we can go to him without fear, certain that he will deign to look on us with infinite mercy – from The Spiritual Direction of Saint Claude de la Colombiere translated and arranged by Mother M. Philip, I.B.V.M
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. – Oscar Wilde
This path of self-knowledge must never be abandoned, nor is there on this journey a soul so much a giant that it has no need to return often to the stage of an infant and a suckling. And this should never be forgotten. – St. Teresa of Avila
If we fail to forgive, we’re rejecting our own faith. – Fr. Emil Kapaun, from The Miracle of Father Kapaun; Priest, Soldier and Korean War Hero
Have no fear. Can I take the place of God? Even though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good, to achieve his present end, the survival of many people. – Joseph in the Book of Genesis
Living Differently 